Frank - Toronto Geological Discussion Group Mtg report on diamonds. Went to the meeting today at noon, very well attended, about 90-100 people. They moved it to the Canadian Club to have more room.
As expected they couldn't report specifically on any particular companies property, but the meeting was still very informative.
My general conclusion, is that the program for about everyone is really just beginning although certainly Ashton are out in front in terms of targets found, drilled, confirmed kimberlitic, and diamondiferous, and with significant counts. I think 13 of 17 pipes are confirmed diamondiferous.
Ray Olson covered the overall geological setting of Alberta, and Mike Dufresne covered the findings so far in a general sense including the Fort a la Corne discovery.
It appears that the area on the south border may be a good prospect as well as the Buffalo Hills area. I liked the 3D slides of the pipe geophysics.
The perceptionI have is that there will likely be a lot of targets identified from the airborne geophysics. Generally, the pipes tend to be non-eroded so that together with the amount of overburden explains why we don't find as well defined mineral trains as in the NWT. However, in terms of exploration costs this is offset by the clearer airborne signatures. This is followed by some ground geophysics to make sure the signature is not easily explained by something else. If still a high priority target and some indicator minerals around, then out come the drills.
So, this is a diamond hunt that has just started, and very much a challenge for the first discovery of bigger commercial sized diamonds and hopefully some economic pipes.
Caribgold representatives were there who co-sponsored the event with APEX Geoscience and they were very upbeat on their expanding interest in the search. |
