Shore Gold Finds 45.95 carat Diamond

Shore Gold Inc said the fourth set of diamond results from bulk sampling of the Orion South Kimberlite produced a gray 45.95 carat diamond. The stone, which is the largest diamond recovered from the site to date, is a fragment of a larger stone.

Diamond recoveries at the Orion South Kimberlite, part of the Fort a La Corne joint venture, totaled 288.36 carats from 5,673.82 dry tons of kimberlite processed. Of the total, Shore Gold recovered 2,321 commercial-sized diamonds – greater than 1.18 millimeter square mesh screen – that collectively weighed 287.89 carats.

The three other largest stones recovered were a gray 4.92 carats stone, an off-white 4.63 carats and an off-white 3.77 carats. Production included seven diamonds over two carats and nineteen diamonds over one carat in size, of which four were white, nine off-white, three gray and three brown.

Thirty-seven percent of the diamonds were classified as white, and a further 39 percent was classified as off-white.

George Read, the senior vice president of exploration and development at Shore Gold who is responsible for the verification and quality assurance of analytical results, noted that while the fine grained Pense material has low diamond grade, pattern core drilling showed that significant volumes of coarse grained Pense material occur at depth within Orion South.  

The 15 kimberlite batches from which Shore Gold recovered 99 percent of the diamonds were all recovered from fine-grained, ash-rich Pense volcaniclastic kimberlite, which generally has low grade as it forms the upper part of the cinder cone of the original kimberlite volcano.

“Our experience from Star suggests that there is the potential for elevated diamond grades within the coarse grained Pense Kimberlite,” Read said in a statement.

“The occurrence of the 45.95 carat stone within the Pense confirms the prospects of coarser grained parts of this kimberlite lithology and the large stone potential of Orion South,” he added, noting that although it was the primary goal of the underground bulk sampling program on Orion South to collect 5,000 carats from the Early Joli Fou Kimberlite (EJF), a number of carats would also be recovered from the Pense en route to the EJF.

Canada-based Shore Gold operates Fort a La Corne with a 60 percent stake, while Newmont Mining Corporation of Canada Limited owns the remaining 40 percent.