Potentilla proves a bust

Vancouver — A mini-bulk sample collected from the Potentilla kimberlite on the Kikerk Lake property in Nunavut’s north Slave Craton region has fallen short of expectations.

The Kikerk Lake property is held 52.5% by Ashton Mining of Canada (ACA-T), 30% by Northern Empire Minerals (NEM-V) and 17.5% by Caledonia Mining (CAL-T). Ashton can increase its interest to 59.5% by carrying Caledonia through to completion of a feasibility study. Northern Empire retains its 30% working interest.

The partners had collected 4.48 tonnes of material from the kimberlite breccia and 1.35 tonnes from the hypabyssal phase. Using a 1-sq.-mm aperture screen, the sample gave a value of 17.5 carats per 100 tonnes, while a 0.8-sq.-mm aperture yielded a value of 22 carats per 100 tonnes. The breccia sample gave the highest values, returning 19.2 carats per 100 tonnes. The biggest stone recovered weighed 0.34 carat; the second largest, 0.09 carat.

No further work is planned on the pipe, as Ashton shifts its focus to the nearby Stellaria pipe.

Earlier this year at Stellaria, a 105.4-kg sample collected from the discovery drill core returned 66 microdiamonds (0.1-0.5 mm in two dimensions) and 13 macrodiamonds (greater than 0.5 mm in at least one dimension).

Moving 40 metres northwest, an August drill hole cut 21 metres of kimberlite under 68 metres of cover. The latest drilling suggests that the body may mark a 13-metre-wide dyke, dipping at 72 to the northwest with a potential strike length of 400 metres. Ashton has collected 100 kg of core for additional microdiamond counts.

Stellaria is oriented along a 2-km-long linear geophysical feature. A portion of this feature sits directly up-ice of a kimberlite indicator mineral train hosting a significant G10 garnet population.