February 1, 2008

Shear reports high diamond counts


by Jo Black

Shear Minerals Ltd. and Stornoway Diamond Corporation announced additional caustic fusion results from four new kimberlite discoveries at the Churchill Diamond project in Nunavut. The kimberlite dykes identified from drilling in 2007 have returned significant micro and macrodiamond counts ranging from 29 to 138 diamonds per kilogram of kimberlite analyzed.

Field activities at Churchill in 2007 identified additional, highly diamondiferous kimberlite bodies in close association with prominent structural trends, says Shear President and CEO Pamela Strand. Given the extremely high diamond counts, which in some cases exceed 100 diamonds per kilogram, the partners are optimistic that Churchill has the potential to host an economic diamond resource.

Ms. Strand says that future work will include prospecting, geophysics and drilling along these favorable structures to examine grade variability and search for zones of higher tonnage potential.

In 2007 drilling discovered four new kimberlite dykes that are of high interest based on initial field observations confirmed by microdiamond counts. These kimberlites occur at the heads of three different G10 pyrope mineral trains in the Sedna Corridor and are believed to be the source of the mineral chemistry based on their close spatial association. The kimberlite dykes range in size from 10 to 50cm true width and are highly altered with visible pyrope garnets.

Samples were submitted to the Saskatchewan Research Council Geoanalytical Laboratories (”SRC”) accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard by the Standards Council of Canada as a testing laboratory for diamond analysis using caustic fusion. Diamonds from these four dykes will be described, categorized and assessed for any breakage.

The Churchill Diamond Project is owned 58.14% by Shear and 41.86% by Stornoway and is comprised of the diamond rights to more than two million acres located near the communities of Rankin Inlet and Chesterfield Inlet in the Kigali region of Nunavut. Work is presently focused on continued exploration of new promising indicator mineral trains and geophysical anomalies as well as the evaluation of a system of significantly diamond-bearing, vertically-emplaced kimberlite dykes that have returned sample grades of up to 2.18 carats per tone.

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