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Gold/Mining/Energy : Canadian Diamond Play Cafi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: VAUGHN who wrote (844)	5/25/2003 10:52:57 AM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16203

Actually, unlike granite in some areas, the granite in the "territories" is relatively quiet. As we know, the means of detecting anomalies in the territories to date has been predominantly on-time, or 70 IPS ("high frequency") TDEM (time domain "input" electromagnetics), which are co-incident most often with magnetic lows or no magnetic signature at all. The limestone on the other hand is quite busy magnetically, and often has spurious mag highs in it at any rate. It is also full of spurious solution holes and other circular features, which will lead you astray, as far as topographical indications would ordinarily go. I guess these features will vary from place to place. What is happy about the pure Arctic and the Islands themselves, is that due to the fact that they are barren, surficial expression of large features such as kimberlite intrusions may be visually, or especially remote-sensed by IR and hyperspectral means. There has been a bit of hyperspectral work flown up there for various companies. I know a fellow with Ekwan, a public company which does some of that work. They are quite keen on the Arctic. Somerset had many visually recognizable bodies. Most, of not all the Somerset pipes found by Cominco in the 1970's were found by looking out the aircraft windows. I used to take Geology from the fellow who found a lot of them, Roger Mitchell. The Somerset stuff was weakly, (less than 20 carats per 100 tons) diamondiferous, at least from the standpoint of the small bulk tests done by the Sortex machine they brought up there -- (and left behind incidentally, if you are looking for one). Sortex is used to find stones by X-Ray fluoresecence and separate them from a flow. It works, but is not used exclusively in diamond plants, because only 25% of stones fluoresce. It also needs an expert operator to set it up and tweak it on a particular deposit's material, which may have coatings which defeat the machine. It was developed by the Russians. I talked to Tciganov, a Russkie who had worked with the original Sortex at the Mir in the 50's. At any rate, I doubt that Cominco had it even set up at all right, or that even if it had, that the samples taken are definitive of: 1. the area potential, which cannot be defined by any pipe in particular that well. 2. the pipes themselves from the smallness of the samples. 15 or 20 ton samples cannot tell you the economics of the pipes 3. the pipes themselves from the incompleteness of the recovery. Sortex cannot get all the stones. A plant needs gravity (DMS or dense media separation) and flotation too. Mitchell seemed to concur that the pipes tested would not be high grade, although like Kirkland Lake, they seemed to be widely diamondiferous. He based that on his take on the chemistry of the pipes which he tested in his own fashion. Because the pipes were so easy to find, they did little work on indicator mineral trains. This would have given them at least some idea about the field in general or nearby fields. The Cominco work set Canadian diamond exploration work back 20 years, not ahead. Too many people took its conclusions as negative, instead of hopeful that economics was just around the corner. I was not able to convince one explorer or investor that exploring the area, particularly adjacent Baffin Island was an excellent idea. It was. As well many thought despite the presence of Nansivik and Polaris mines then operating up there, that economics of a kimberlite or any mine would have to be dictated by at first, much superior grade. For one you are on tidewater. For another you have next to no overburden removal. For another ground water pumping is a non starter. For yet another pit wall stability is much better because of permafrost. Environmental costs and concerns are much reduced. finding the deposits is really not harder than say locating them in the Amazon or under a Northern Ontario swamp. So finally what is harder, given that you can get men and material there? Power generation? The cold? Transportation? Short season thereof? Not that much. Equipment still runs. Diesels run well in the arctic. Put them in hot climates and you may see more trouble.(Expansion, corrosion) I will grant you a few problems with trucks and bearings and the like. You need to prepare for the weather. Nothing Canadians haven't been doing in mines in the Territories and Ontario now down to 70 below zero farenheit for 130 years now. The cost factor because of weather is not astronomical. With good planning, there are no multiples in cost factors. I would say, given the advantages of the location and cost savings over being in the south 200 miles back in the bush, the cost differential is not that high. Few of the "explorationists" or investors I had talked to to had even considered the way in which our ancestors had brought in mining areas like Red Lake which was first accessed by dog team later by float plane, or the Berens River mine in the 1930's which was built 200 miles north of any road, and a power dam built for it 30 miles away. All by winter tractor train. Mines I know in the territories and in Northern Ontario had all their equipment hauled in on DC3's on floats. (Muskesagagen Lake, Cullaton Lake and a few others.) It did not seem to disturb their economics at all. EC<:-}