Very interesting post. Here is what most trouble me:
Very interesting reply. I hope you don't mind me jumping in. I haven't heard a good diamond-salting theory in years.
extraordinary find
One might argue that any diamondiferous kimberlite is an extraordinary find by the very nature of their rarity. There are some uncommon features about this one, however.
-- even puzzling --
Well, from my English perspective, extraordinary trumps puzzling, so I have no further comment on that.
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."
Well, let's not get carried away here. It's not like Diamond Trading NV is evaluating the entire crop of microdiamonds. I would be flabbergasted if there were no crappy diamonds at Freightrain. Remember that only 86 diamonds were examined. How were they picked?
without having their characteristic yellow colouring.
Cape series diamonds are certainly the most common, by far. They range in colour from colourless, through various shades of yellow.
Not all of Twin's diamonds were clear and colourless however. I have not seen a description of what they were, but Twin did say that not all were clear and colourless.
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.
That's not unusual. Many microdiamond populations were deemed to be "of gem quality" in the early days. That meant little, because it's hard for something measuiring 0.2 millimetres in length to be riddled with inclusions, and it would be pretty easy to classify something that thin as "clear and colourless." What matters is the quality of the larger stones.
Derbuch also said there is definitely a bias toward larger stones.
That's clear, and something I've been pointing out for more than a year. Freightrain has a healthy diamond size distribution curve.
The percentage of large diamonds is unusual, almost double that of known producers in the world.
Well, he's referring to the percentage of two-millimetre stones to one-millimetre ones, and he's right, based on a small sample size. For more information, a Stockwatch article in December 2000 covered that point.
"There are two populations of diamonds,"
That's hardly surprising nor unique. It's very common for there to have been multiple emplacements in a kimberlite, each with its own population of diamonds, especially if the rock came from different depths.
it's unusual for the populations not to overlap.
Yes it is. Frankly, I think that additional samples would make things clearer to Twin and others.
But it reminds me of a very particular and unique «maars and diatrems» gold deposit found in some jungle somewhere on earth.
Ahh, Bre-X. Well, that one Busanged one day in 1997 because of a salt job. Easily done with gold. Splash a bit of gold mixture over the core and voila. Salting all the cores probably cost just $40,000.
You can't salt a solid kimberltie core sample by splashing eau-de-diamant over the core, I'm afraid. You could try crazy-gluing an assortment of micros and macros to the core, I suppose, but the lab would be very suspicious that all the diamonds were visible, and protruded from the core. [grin]
I know that nature is sometimes unpredictable. Two populations of diamonds!!!!!!
Again, that's more the norm than unusual. See Mountain Province for instance. Understanding Kennady Lake is a must.
Now, you understand why I think an totally independant sampling and essaying protocol is necessary.
That's where Lakefield Research comes in. Did you know that the reason that the caustic fusion samples are so delayed is because there is a huge backlog of samples submitted by De Beers -- a company that is generally known for using its own labs and evaluators, I might add.
Yup, Lakefield has a pretty good reputation in the diamond business, and assaying in general.
I will let you think about it (Don't be angry. Each and every possible cause must be examined!!!!!!).
Fair enough. I'll let you think about it too.
Jackson Inlet will succeed or fail on the diamond content and value at Freightrain, Cargo, or some as yet undiscovered kimberlite. Salting a diamond mine is not a viable possibility, unless the lab is cooking the data in collusion. With Lakefield, you know that's not realistically going to happen.
Hope this helps,
WillP |
