George,
I was intereste in what you had to say about the new boulder train.
One, it's kimberlite. Two, a diamond has been found in the area of
the train and it's a commercial size. Three, the boulders are not rounded. The shape of the boulders interested me because the implication is that they have not moved very far from their source.
The further from the source, the more rounded one would expect them to be. That is, however, if they were moved and deposited by glacial
activity.
If they were blasted out by a volcanic eruption, then the shape wouldn't have the same significance regarding distance to the source.
Given that they are described as a train, I'd assume they were glacialk debris originating in Snap Lake.
At the moment, the most encouraging thing I've heard is that more than one indicator path leads toward the lake. Given that experience has now shown that soft kimberlite was gouged out by the glaciers in the NWT, then it makes sense that the most likely place for a pipe is under the lake. If all paths lead back to the lake, then that's the place to look. At the same time, if the signature in the area is nearly impossible or impossible to read because of the host rock or because of the network of dykes, then identifying the pipe is going to be tricky. I read on one post the suggestion that the lake be drained. In exploration terms that is practical but in political terms, it isn't going to happen. If draining the lake were acceptable, ABZ would have done it at Diavek a long time ago. They're planningon spending millions to create a berm.
If anyone is curious about how the situation at Snap Lake might progress, read the last couple of years of press releases from ABZ. The pattern is all there.
Like you, I'm hoping that this latest train of kimberlite will be tracked back to a pipe. My one concern is that if the rocks are spread over a wide area rather than forming a narrowing triangle back toward the lake, that they might be the result of glacial action upon a dyke. I haven't found any description of the pattern they formed. Im assuming that WSP geologists have set out their placement on a grid and are trying to work back from that. Like I say, I haven't been paying a lot of attention the last while so I may have missed some information regarding this latest kimberlite find. Can you add anything about it? |
