Enough diamonds were recovered during a tailings audit on the Kahnuna bulk sample to possibly increase the project’s diamond grade to 1.04 carats per tonne.
The Kahuna project is part of Stornaway Diamond (SWY-T) and Shear Minerals‘ (SRM-V) Churchill diamond project in Nunavut.
Another 351 diamonds representing 6.196 carats were recovered from the tailings audit. During the audit between 15% and 22% of the tails were taken from three samples including one 0.27 carat diamond. The tailings were put through the dense media separation circuit to produce a heavy mineral concentrate which was then subjected to caustic fusion to recover diamonds.
A breakage study was also done to investigate the value characteristics of the macro diamonds and see how they vary with increasing diamond size.
A high abundance of colourless and near colourless diamonds have been recovered though clarity tends to decrease in the larger stones due to an increase in the frequency of inclusions and fragmentation.
The study found that seven fragmented diamonds totaling 13.42 carats most likely originated from a single larger stone. It was also found that some diamonds showed evidence of breakage through mechanical means during processing.
Shear is now finalizing arrangements for an independent market valuation of the Kahuna diamonds, which will be done in Antwerp, Belgium. The valuation will give a preliminary estimate of the average diamond value for the parcel recovered to date.
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