Despite the discovery of several diamondiferous kimberlites on the Victoria Island property in Nunavut, Monopros, the Canadian exploration arm of
Over the past two years, Monopros spent $1.3 million exploring the project and made cash payments totalling $50,000 to the vendors. Entering the final year of a 3-year deal, the major diamond explorer decided not to renew the third-year option, which called for $735,000 in expenditures and cash payments totalling $150,000 in return for a 51% interest.
To date, Monopros has discovered five diamondiferous kimberlites on the property: Golden Plover, Longspur, Phalarope, Whimbrel and Snowy Owl. These have microdiamond counts ranging from one micro per 100 kg to 180 micros per 100 kg.
In 1999, two kimberlite bodies were discovered: Horned Lark and Arctic Tern. The former, situated 2.5 km east of the Snowy Owl kimberlite, was tested with one vertical hole to a depth of 97 metres. The hole intersected 78 metres of kimberlite before being shut down in kimberlite, owing to difficult drilling conditions. Meanwhile, dyke-like intercepts of kimberlite in the range of 2-8 metres were intersected in the Arctic Tern body. Results from the microdiamond analysis of the core have not been released.
Last winter’s exploration program consisted of eight diamond drill holes totalling 854 metres and more than 200 line km of ground magnetic surveys. The Snowy Owl pipe was tested with four delineation holes, the deepest vertical intercept of kimberlite being 130 metres. Acid digestion analysis was performed on 438 kg of kimberlite at De Beers’ lab in South Africa. The sample contained 418 kg of drill core from four drill holes, as well as 20 kg of chips obtained from the 1998 percussion drill program. The analysis yielded 790 diamonds, for an average of 1.8 diamonds per kilogram of sample.
One 22-kg sample from hole 128 yielded 417 micro fragments, which could have resulted from the accidental crushing of a larger stone. Four of the diamonds from that sample batch were classified as macros. (Monopros defines a macro as equal to, or greater than, 0.5 mm in at least one dimension.)
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