Brian, a little news for you on your pick.
regards,
Al
CBP: DIAMONDS ALIVE IN COLORADO!
Cons Pacific Bay Minerals Ltd CBP
Shares issued 3,106,409
Thursday Mar 15 2001
It's the big stones that keep them coming back to Colorado. The prospect of an American diamond mine has been on people's minds for years. Since the 1970s, the State Line region of Colorado has produced a considerable quantity of diamonds. In fact, two stones have exceeded 28 carats in weight and one of those stones was eventually cut into the largest diamond ever produced from a US mine.
Consolidated Pacific Bay Minerals Ltd. (CDNX: CBP) is now preparing a work program on a State Line region property the company believes will set them solidly on course to becoming America's foremost diamond producer. As a result, CBP has begun to attract renewed investor interest, with share prices up from the $0.20 range to highs above $0.45 in recent days.
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Consolidated Pacific Bay is involved in three excellent diamond properties in the State Line region of Colorado. At present, the company's focus is the George Creek property, which is know to contain at least one diamondiferous kimberlite dike. The property has been bulk-sampled and has yielded diamonds above two carats in weight and looks to have an average grade of 75 carats of diamonds per hundred tonnes.
George Creek Property
Kimberlite at George Creek occurs as several dikes that intrude Precambrian crystalline terrain. In general, the kimberlite dikes of George Creek intrude interlayered granitic gneiss, quartzofeldspathic biotite gneiss, biotitic amphibolite gneiss and amphibolite gneiss. Steeply-dipping easterly-trending faults and shear zones transect the immediate area and the surrounding region.
The average depth of weathering is three to five metres and kimberlite is not exposed at the surface anywhere on the property. All of the kimberlite discovered so far occurs as northeast-trending dikes that appear to dip steeply to the northwest. Soil and colluvium one to three metres thick covers the dikes.
The primary exploration target on the property is a steeply-dipping Proterozoic kimberlite dike, with a known strike length of two kilometres and an average thickness of 1.5 metres.
The dike has been trenched covering the majority of strike length where the average width was 1.5 metres. The trenches were approximately one metre wide, one and a half to six metres in depth, and varied from 30 to 305 metres long. The trenches revealed the more than two kilometres of northeast-trending kimberlite dike with a thickness ranging from several centimetres up to four metres.
In 1984, 3,000 tonnes of bulk sample material were processed for macrodiamonds. The bulk sample processing was operated with a .5mm cutoff, corresponding to the size difference between micro-diamonds and macro-diamonds.
Processing of the material resulted in recovering 89,155 macrodiamonds. Diamond grades averaged 75 carats per hundred tonnes and ranged from 54 to 100 cpt. A select sample of 593 George Creek macrodiamonds averaged 88.4 per cent colorless diamonds. Several diamonds greater than two carats were recovered, and the largest stone weighed 2.14 carats.
By way of comparison, based on published information, it is noteworthy that the average grade of the Ekati Mine in the Northwest Territories is 108 carats per 100 tonnes. Then average grade of the DeBeers controlled worldwide diamond reserve is 42 carats per 100 tonnes. In general comparison, considering dike size, attitude and relative location, George Creek kimberlite compares well with other diamond bearing producing kimberlite dikes having an average 75 carats per 100 tonnes.
The company is in the process of developing a drill program on the property to determine the vertical depth and attitude of the dike. Generally, these dikes are highly-weathered hypabyssal-facies macroporphorytic kimberlite, which presumably extend from greater depths. The objective of the drilling is to quantify kimberlite reserves up to 500 metres depth and estimate diamond potential of the dike to develop a small-scale production operation ultimately leading towards a bankable feasibility study.
By all standards, the George Creek Property is at an advanced level of exploration and development.
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The targeted small-scale production is designed to take advantage of the nearby test plant, currently owned by Dia Met Minerals Ltd. The plant has a 60-80 tonne per day processing capacity -- expandable to much higher levels.
The company holds two additional properties in the area, the Sand Creek and the Pearl Creek, both of which are excellent diamond prospects.
Exploration History of the Region
The State Line region of Colorado lies on the border between the state and its northern neighbor, Wyoming. The region itself has been the focus of exploration for some 25 years. About 100 kimberlites have been discovered, 15 of which are known to contain diamonds.
Cominco Ltd., Lac Minerals Ltd., and Superior Oil first carried out exploration activities in the 1970s and completed a 3,000 tonne bulk sample on the George Creek property in 1984, resulting in more than 89,000 macrodiamonds weighing 1,700 carats. Despite having come up with promising results, the companies chose to vacate the area, due mainly to falling diamond prices at the time and internal, corporate factors.
Others followed, with varying degrees of success. Most notable is the Kelsey Bay Mine, located within 12 km of the George Creek Property, which, under the ownership of Redaurum Lake Mines Ltd. and latterly Mackenzie Bay International Ltd. produced 12,000 carats of diamonds running at limited capacity. A significant proportion of the production was in stones weighing more than one carat. Included were two larger stones weighing over 28.2 carats. One was eventually cut into a five-carat gem that fetched $US80,000. The second was cut into a 16.9 carat diamond. It was the fifth-largest rough diamond discovered in the US and, when cut, was the largest US domestic finished diamond ever. Diamond sales from the Kelsey Bay Mine brought in prices as high as $180 per carat.
In recent months, Mackenzie Bay has been in focused on a large vanadium prospect in Quebec, and, having invested several million dollars in the Kelsey Bay Mine, is said to be near a deal to divest. Just who the new owner will be and what plans they have for the future of Kelsey Bay remains to be seen.
Both the media and investors have begun to take notice of the region and of Consolidated Pacific Bay. The company was recently discussed in a Stockwatch article dated February 5, 2001 by reporter Will Purcell, in ongoing coverage from StocksJournal, and in a report in Diamond Jim's Market Bulletin. Local Colorado television has also begun to follow the story.
With what looks to be the impending rejuvenation of the Kelsey Bay Mine and the Consolidated Pacific Bay work program scheduled for June of this year, it would appear as though the State Line region of Colorado will become the seat of America's first, economically viable diamond mine.
Consolidated Pacific Bay is front and centre in the region and, with current share prices, is arguably undervalued and the most attractive investment prospect in American diamonds.
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