Stornoway reports content of 162 cpht from Aviat sample

Stornoway Diamond Corporation and Hunter Exploration Group reports a diamond content of 162 carats per hundred tonnes (cpht) from Dense Media Separation (DMS) processing of 20.6 dry tonnes from the AV2 kimberlite (interpreted as an outcrop exposure of the larger AV267 sheet) at the Aviat Project, located on the Melville Peninsula in eastern Nunavut, Canada. AV267 is one of eleven significantly diamondiferous kimberlites identified at the 2.2 million acre project. The recovery of a 3.64 carat gem quality stone from initial processing of this sample was previously reported on January 21, 2008.

Stornoway’s CEO Eira Thomas said that AV267 has returned the highest diamond recoveries and coarsest diamond distribution from Aviat to date. This result, combined with initial tonnage estimates from previous work, points to a large potential diamond resource. The recovery of a 3.64 carat gem further supports the possibility of commercial diamond values. We are very encouraged by these new developments and are now in position to move forward with a conceptual resource study and a larger bulk sample.

Dense Media Separation (DMS) processing of 20.6 tonnes (dry) of kimberlite collected in three subsamples from surface expressions of the AV267 kimberlite returned a total of 33.36 carats of diamonds, indicating a diamond content of 162 cpht for stones retained on a 0.85mm square mesh screen. The 3.64 ct gem quality white dodecahedron recovered from this work is the largest stone from the Aviat Project to date.

AV267 is one of seven separate kimberlite sheets intersected over an area measuring about 1.5 by 3.5 km within the Eastern Sheet Complex, part of the Tremblay Corridor. These shallowly dipping (8 to 20 degrees), macrocrystic, hypabyssal kimberlite sheets with associated zones of kimberlite breccia are thought to be part of a sequence of layered, horizontally stacked sheets separated by vertical distances of 10 to 30m. The Company is investigating the hypothesis that the eastern kimberlites represent occurrences of a single system of stacked kimberlite sheets underlying the entire 1.5 by 3.5 kilometer area. One such sheet alone would represent a substantial potential tonnage of diamondiferous material. Additional drilling is required to properly test this conceptual model.

Story link: Stornoway reports content of 162 cpht from Aviat sample