Recovery results from the Aviat Projects AV1 and AV2 Upper kimberlites show improved diamond content.
Stornoway Diamond Corp., says a total of 48.9 dry tonnes of material collected and processed by dense media separation (DMS) from AV1 recovered 43.41 carats of diamonds. The results indicate diamond content of 89 carats per hundred tonnes (CPHT) for stones retained on a 0.85-mm square mesh screen, the largest of which were a 0.53-carat colourless macle, a 0.50-carat grey clivage, and a 0.49-carat colourless macle.
The results show improvement over 2004, where recovery yielded 8.54 carats of diamonds from 10.28 dry tonnes for a diamond content of 83 cpht. The largest diamond recovered at the time was a 0.40-carat stone.
With these latest results, AV1’s global summary is 88 cpht.
At the AV2 Upper kimberlite, 6.24 dry tonnes were collected, yielding 4.99 carats of diamonds for an indicated diamond content of 80 cpht. A 0.30-carat colourless broken octahedron was the largest stone found, followed by a 0.23-carat colourless octahedron, and a 0.13-carat grey tetrahexahedroid.
“AV1 has once again returned consistently high diamond grades,” said Stornoway CEO Eira Thomas.
“Equally encouraging is the fact average stone size continues to increase with successively larger kimberlite samples. The diamond content returned from AV2 Upper further evidences the widespread distribution of potentially ore-grade diamond-bearing kimberlites within the Tremblay corridor, some of which, like the AV267 body, appear to have significant tonnage potential.”
