DIAMONDS — Stockdale, Caldera find microdiamonds at Tabletop, Gunanya — Partners ready to drill following clearance

Early soil sampling at the Tabletop and Gunanya properties in the Pilbara region of Western Australia has yielded three microdiamonds.

Stockdale Prospecting, the Australian exploration unit of De Beers Consolidated Mines (DBRS-Q), took the soil samples while doing ground follow-up work on a series of magnetic anomalies found by an airborne survey earlier this year. At each target, crews collected samples at five separate locations, then combined them to provide a composite weighing about 150 kg.

Stockdale, which is exploring the property to earn a 51% interest from Caldera Resources (CDR-M), also found several indicator minerals, including chromite, in the samples. In addition, the company received 20-kg splits of the soil samples from each of the anomalies and will be doing its own analytical work on them.

The microdiamonds were in splits from the samples, weighing 3 to 4 kg. They had been digested using the conventional caustic-fusion process, which dissolves the host rock and leaves the resistant minerals.

Two of the micros came from Tabletop, where an earlier aeromagnetic survey had found four “bull’s-eye” style anomalies suggestive of pipe-like kimberlite bodies. The other came from Gunanya, where the same survey outlined three similar prospects.

The companies also gained a native title site clearance, allowing it to drill on the targets on the Tabletop property. This regulatory requirement obliges anyone planning intrusive site testing to have the site inspected by an anthropological team and representatives of aboriginal groups that may have a land claim on the area.

The site clearance, approved by leaders of the Kunawarritji and Cotton Creek communities, will permit drill testing on all the high-priority targets at Tabletop. To avoid the extreme summer heat, which starts in November, the partners plan to test 10 targets as soon as a drill becomes available. The program will consist of both reverse-circulation and air-core drilling, with holes 100-120 metres deep.