DIAMOND PAGE — Kennecott finds more kimberlite in Alberta

The final two targets of this year’s drilling program on the Legend property in northeastern Alberta have proved to be kimberlites, raising to seven the number of bodies found there.

Kennecott Canada Exploration encountered kimberlite in the Xena target at a depth of 86 metres. Xena has a magnetic geophysical signature measuring 300 by 300 metres.

The last target to be tested this year was Legend, a 400-by-400-metre magnetic anomaly near the Legend gas plant facilities in the southeastern corner of the 1.5-million-acre property. Kimberlite was intersected at a shallow depth of only 12.2 metres.

To date, microdiamond results have been reported for only the Phoenix target. Caustic fusion results for the remaining six kimberlites will not be available until mid-January 1999.

Kennecott, a division of Rio Tinto (RTP-N), can earn a 60% interest in the Legend property from 70-30 owners Montello Resources (MEO-A) and Redwood Resources (RDW-A) by either advancing it to a production decision or spending $30 million on exploration over seven years.

In a report to Montello and Redwood, Buddy Doyle, exploration manager of the North American diamonds division of Kennecott, says the company’s strategy is to obtain a large inventory of separate kimberlite intercepts by drilling as many targets as possible. “The more kimberlite we intercept, the more we will increase our chances of an economic discovery and increase our understanding of this kimberlite field,” he says.

Kennecott plans to begin follow-up geophysics in January and begin drilling at the same time. At last report, the company had defined 28 geophysical targets for drilling.

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