Wawa diamond finds unique.

• Author: TOMLINSON, MARLA
• Position: Brief Article

New rock type indicate greater potential for diamond mining

There was a lot of speculation about the viability of diamond exploration in the Wawa area, but recent results may prove skeptics wrong, says the president of a junior mining company.

Band-Ore Resources Ltd., one of the mining companies exploring in the Wawa area, has made an "exciting" discovery - a quarter-carat diamond, says Wayne O'Connor.

The quarter-carat diamond measures 3.74 by 3.3 by 3.1 millimetres and was taken from, a 12.5-tonne exploration sample.

This is the largest diamond recovered from a bedrock source in the Wawa area, O'Connor says.

In addition to this diamond, there were 29 other diamonds, ranging in size from 3.06 to 0.70 millimetres, recovered from the same sample. Twenty-seven of the diamonds had two dimensions greater than 1.0 millimetre, four of which had two dimensions greater than 2.0 millimetres. The diamonds varied in colour between white, yellow, pink, brown, gray and black.

"We have defined a huge area that has diamonds - a high frequency of diamonds - across roughly 600 metres in length and 75 metres wide." O'Connor says. "It has implications for huge tonnage potential. It's very encouraging."

Band-Ore is exploring an area approximately 20 kilometres from Wawa. O'Connor says they have established the presence of large quantities of diamonds in an Archean-aged geological environment not previously known to contain any significant diamonds.

Brian Atkinson, resident geologist for the district, says the find breaks new ground in the diamond-mining industry. The rocks from which these diamond samples have been extracted are not typically known to be host for diamonds, he says.

Rock types that genetically are associated with diamonds include: kimberlite, orangeite, lamproite and lamprophyre. However, Atkinson says this exploration is generating diamond in non-kimberlite Archean-aged rocks.

"A challenge the companies exploring in the area face, is they have to prove that it is going to be viable to mine there because (the source is) not like traditional sources of diamonds known," Atkinson says. "These companies are really starting from scratch, and there is not a lot of background information to guide...