Good morning VAUGHN,
Very interesting post. Here is what most trouble me:
On the Brodeur Peninsula of Baffin Island, 100 km east of Somerset Island, Twin Mining (TWG-T) has made an extraordinary find at its Jackson Inlet property. Numerous commercial-size gem stones were recovered from surface sampling of the Freightrain kimberlite body. What makes the find extraordinary -- even puzzling -- is that unlike the kimberlites being mined at Lac de Gras and elsewhere in the world, the Jackson Inlet diamonds are reported to differ in their "total absence of boart, rejections, coated and cubes, which are low-grade and low-yield diamonds." No explanation was given for this phenomenon, which is highly unusual, given current geological evidence on diamond distribution."
"The 86 stones were examined by Antwerp-based Diamond Trading N.V., which stated that Freightrain diamonds are "similar to high-quality South African diamonds, but without having their characteristic yellow colouring." In comparison, the Lac de Gras diamonds from the Ekati and Diavik projects are "generally octahedrons with higher occurrences of black piques [impurities] and maccles [intergrown diamond crystals]."
"Twin Mining has recovered a total of 869 stones to date, including microdiamonds, from limited surface sampling on Freightrain. Derbuch told The Northern Miner, during a recent site visit, that no boarts occur in the micros either, though there have been a few cubes. Derbuch also said there is definitely a bias toward larger stones.
Richard Roy, project manager and consultant, concurs that almost half of the +1-mm diamonds are greater than 2 mm. The percentage of large diamonds is unusual, almost double that of known producers in the world.
There also is an apparent gap in the plotting of the size distribution of the microdiamonds recovered last year. "There are two populations of diamonds,"
Davis explained, "either on an aggregate basis or an individual-sample basis.The micros don't match the macros. There has been a sampling of two sources [by the kimberlite]." He added that there is a population of small stones (up to the 0.6-mm size fraction) that are separated from a population of larger +1-mm stones by three size fractions where only a sparse number of diamonds have been recovered. While it is possible in a single kimberlite to find multiple populations of diamond sizes, it's unusual for the populations not to overlap."
But it reminds me of a very particular and unique «maars and diatrems» gold deposit found in some jungle somewhere on earth.
I know that nature is sometimes unpredictable. Two populations of diamonds!!!!!!
Now, you understand why I think an totally independant sampling and essaying protocol is necessary.
I will let you think about it (Don't be angry. Each and every possible cause must be examined!!!!!!).
;o)
Regards
JP |
