Thorunn Howatt
Northern News Services

Kugluktuk, NU (Sep 23/02) - Early hopes for diamonds in the Coronation Gulf have dimmed with disappointing results reported by Ashton Mining.

Ashton was the company that led a huge staking rush a year ago. The area is close to Kugluktuk.

But the company has now found that samples taken from its Potentilla property returned only a total of 1.02 carats of consequentially-sized diamonds. The results gave the sample an estimated diamond content of 17.50 carats per hundred tonnes -- not enough to stake a diamond mine on.

The company did refer to the gems as "commercial-sized" though. The largest diamond recovered was a .34 carat stone.

Ashton said no further work is planned on Potentilla at this time.

But the recovery of the .34 carat diamond in Potentilla does confirm the presence of kimberlites in the Nunavut region.

Ashton plans to continue exploration on its Kikerk Lake property and elsewhere in the region.