Jan. 16 - RXD.TSE - MAURITANIA DISCOVERY
Via: Canada NewsWire
TORONTO, Jan. 16 /CNW/ - Rex Diamond Mining Corporation today announced that it has discovered a 30km by 30km area containing numerous pyrope garnets and several magnetic anomalies in its concession area in the desert of northern Mauritania. The pyrope garnets have a chemical composition typical of diamond-bearing kimberlites. In the 30 km by 30 km block several near-circular
depressions are visible on aerial photographs. The depressions have a diameter of 300 to 500 meters and could point to kimberlite craters. Because of the limited erosion in the region, the kimberlites are expected to be large.
Rex Diamond Mining Corporation is exploring for diamond-bearing
kimberlites on the Reguibat craton in Mauritania. To date Rex has flown 100,000 line kilometers of aeromagnetic surveys, has carried out analysis of Landsat TM satellite images, and has taken 600 heavy mineral samples on a regular grid. Sampling by the company's field crews is continuing at a rate of 300 to 400 samples per month. Each sample consists of 20 m2 of desert lag gravel scraped from the surface, treated on site and analyzed at the Cape Town
mineralogical laboratory of Prof. Dr. J. Gurney, the world's leading authority on the chemistry of diamond indicator minerals. At present the soil sampling grid has been narrowed with a view to defining optimal kimberlite targets for drilling and trenching. The high success rate of the heavy mineral sampling program at such an early stage of exploration is exceptional and underlines the effectiveness of the area selection process based on aeromagnetic, satellite imagery and regional geological data.
Dr. Luc Rombouts said: ''at this stage, 23% of the heavy mineral
samples contained kimberlitic pyrope garnets. Microprobe analyses on
the first batch of pyrope garnets confirm that they were formed in the
lower part of the lithosphere with Cr2O3 contents between 3% and 6%,
MgO contents between 19% and 21%, and Na2O contents better than 0.10%, indicative of the high pressures and temperatures required to form diamonds. The positive samples show a clear dispersal pattern, pointing to the promising kimberlite source area.''
Rex has two exploration permits in Mauritania, Akchar and El Hammami,
covering 46,700 km2. A third permit, Tenoumer, covers 25,600 km2 and is currently under application. All three permits are 100% owned by Rex and cover the core of the Archaean Reguibat craton. Elsewhere in the world, economic diamond-bearing kimberlites are located on cratons of Archaean age and it is indeed surprising that the Reguibat craton was not explored for diamonds in the past. The research effort has so far been concentrated on the southern half of the El Hammami permit. The northern half of the El Hammami permit has been covered by the airborne geophysical survey, but not yet by the heavy
mineral sampling. Several bull's eye anomalies that could be related to kimberlites have been found in the north and these areas will be sampled in the coming months. With a total exploration acreage of 72,300 km2 in the core of the Archaean craton, Rex expects to find more than one kimberlite province in the desert of Mauritania.
Rex Diamond Mining Corporation is a fully integrated group of diamond
operating companies ranging from exploration through to the mining and
marketing of high-quality gem diamonds. The Company has operating subsidiaries in South Africa, Sierra Leone, Mauritania, Liberia and Antwerp, Belgium.
For further information: Serge Muller or Ben Holemans,
Antwerp, 011-32-3-205-9060; Ross Orr, Toronto, (416) 955-9033;
Website: rexmining.be
E-mail: Ben@rexmining.be |
