Low-hanging fruit runs out
Kennady Diamond project points to future of diamond exploration
Walter Strong
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 8, 2014
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Kennady Diamonds Inc. (TSX-V:KDI) has quickly established its Kennady North diamond project to be a contender in the search for the next NWT diamond mine. At the same time, project geology suggests the future of diamond exploration may not resemble its past.
The Kelvin winter camp last March at Kennady Diamonds Inc.'s Kennady Lake diamond project. Project geologists say the days of "easy" diamond discoveries are over as they turn their attention to non-typical kimberlite deposits. - photo courtesy Kennady Diamonds Inc.
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Located approximately 280 km northeast of Yellowknife, virtually adjacent to Gahcho Kue, exploration has been focused on the two-kilometre corridor between the Kelvin and Faraday kimberlites.
Project geologists were in Yellowknife recently to present on the structure of what discovering underground in terms of kimberlite formation, and what it means for exploration methods.
Traditionally, potentially diamond-rich kimberlites would show up as carrot shaped deposits with a large surface presence which tapers down underground.
"Kimberlites were easy to find," said George Belcourt, an Aurora Geoscience geophysicist who has been working on the Kennady North project.
"You'd fly and airborne survey and you would see all these blue dots, so you would dril, drill, drill."
Those blue dots were the electro-magnetic signals of potential diamond ore bodies underground -- kimberlites.
"Those targets are gone," Belcourt said. "We've found them all."
"Now you're seeing different types of kimberlites, different types of bodies, non-traditional bodies that may be different shaped and deeper."
These kimberlites, as represented in digital representations, sit like large amorphous blobs underground.
Looking more like a potato than a carrot, the deposits clearly don't lend themselves to the traditional open-pit style of diamond mining we're familiar with in the North.
"There are sheet structures that fold and dip," Belcourt said.
"There are also pipe features, but they are not like traditional pipes coming up from vertical. What we're seeing at Kelvin and possibly at Faraday is the pipes have come up in a structure, turned and gone another direction."
"It's complex, more complex than those Ekati-type pipes that are being mined now," he added.
This likely means underground mining, similar to what is happening at the De Beers Snap Lake diamond mine.
It also presents challenges for future diamond exploration.
"There's no silver bullet anymore," Belcourt said.
"There's no one survey that's going to say drill here, it's a kimberlite. You've got to put all the little pieces together to have a good recommendation for drilling. We're trying to rework the toolbox to help find these different types of bodies."
Even through project geologists are reworking the toolbox as they go -- and burning through exploration cash while they do it -- whatever they're doing appears to be working well at Kennady North.
Kennady Diamonds only acquired the 61,000 hectare property in 2012 from Mountain Province Diamonds (joint-developer of the Gahcho Kue diamond mine with De Beers), and expects to have a first resource estimate in hand mid-2015.
That resource estimate is anticipated to be in the range of 9 million to 12 million tonnes of ore at a grade of two carats per tonne -- or approximately 18 million carats -- and that's not including other kimberlites that Kennady expects to identify by then.
Drilling on the 61,000 hectare property has been focused on the corridor between the Kelvin and Faraday kimberlites. Last winter, Kennady drilled more than 10,000 metres and collected two small bulk samples from Kelvin (25.1 tonnes) and Faraday (1.1 tonnes) that returned 2.16 carats per tonne and 4.54 carats per tonne from Kelvin and Faraday respectively.
Right now, Kennady is more than 16,000 metres into an 18,000 metre drill program and expects to produce a 30 tonne mini-bulk sample from Kelvin for ore grading and diamond valuation. Plans for this winter and spring include a 500-tonne bulk sample (which Kennady is already funded for), approximately 10,000 metres drilling at both Kelvin and Faraday, and drill testing of approximately 20 new targets.
Two weeks ago, Kennady diamonds announced the commissioning of a new 50-person exploration camp next Kelvin, and is now into its winter drill program.
