Stornoway Diamond Corporation yesterday announced the discovery of kimberlite at its 100% owned Adamantin Project located approximately 100 km south of the Renard Diamond Project and 25km west of the Route 167 Extension in north central Québec. “To date 11 distinct kimberlite bodies have been identified, with intersections of up to 13.7 meters of undiluted kimberlite, and are interpreted to represent a new centre of kimberlite emplacement located proximal to, but distinct from, the Renard kimberlite cluster,” the Corporation stated.

Stornoway said that till sampling at Adamantin during 2015 confirmed the presence of indicator mineral anomalies interpreted to be sourced from undiscovered kimberlites with diamond potential. One till sample contained a diamond from the +0.25mm-0.50mm size fraction.

Drilling commenced on March 20, 2016, with a light weight, helicopter portable, reverse circulation (RC) drill rig designed to test multiple geophysical targets within a broad indicator mineral anomaly and was suspended on May 1st. Within this period, kimberlite had been intersected in 18 of 78 drill holes (including 7 lost holes) testing 72 geophysical targets. “These intersections are interpreted to represent at least 11 discrete kimberlite bodies,” the Corporation said. “Additional high priority targets under lakes could not be tested due to deteriorating ice conditions.”

Matt Manson, President and CEO, commented: “We are encouraged by the early drilling at Adamantin which has discovered a spatially extensive field of kimberlite emplacement in an area that we knew to have promising indicator mineral chemistry and where we had already found a diamond in till. To our knowledge, this is the first new field of kimberlites discovered in Québec in more than 10 years.”

Manson said that drilling was curtailed by melting ice conditions before all the best targets could be tested and hence, the Company believes that additional kimberlites remain to be discovered. 

“Of the 18 kimberlite intersections identified from drilling, 14 returned intersections of undiluted (100%) hypabyssal kimberlite chips between 1.5m and 13.7m in length,” Stornoway revealed. “Intersections of mixed chips of kimberlite and country rock were also returned up to 22.9m in length. The mixing of kimberlite and country rock chips over these intervals by this drilling method could represent the discovery of multiple, layered kimberlite bodies, and/or the inclusion of country rock xenoliths and wall rock material within a discrete kimberlite body, and/or the presence of breccia haloes and alteration zones proximal to larger bodies as is seen at the Renard Project, and/or dilution caused by the RC lifting process.”

Pic Cap: Mining at Renard-2
Courtesy Stornoway Diamond Corporation