CANADIAN MINING NEWS

 

DIAMOND HUNT IS ON 

 by Rick Owen – Northern Daily News – April 11, 2001

 The flavour of the month in the local exploration field could become diamonds. About every 10 years the hunt for diamonds in Timiskaming seems to heat up and create quite a bit of excitement and investment.

So far this hasn’t happened, although that doesn’t mean junior companies and prospectors haven’t been looking for them.

The difference this time is explorationists may be going back to a type of rock that in the past they have ignored.

Traditional thinking, based on the South African model, was that diamonds were only hosted in kimberlite.

This has been disproven in Australia and in the Wawa area. In both places diamonds have been found in lamprophitic rocks.

Fortunately for prospectors in this area, the government still provides funding for district geologists, who are able to do some of the groundwork to explore new possibilities.

Gary Grabowski, district geologist Ministry of Northern affairs and Development Kirkland Lake office, was able to take a trip to Wawa to get a first hand look at the lamprophyre and then was able to both visually and chemically compare it with lamprophyre in Timiskaming.

Similar Samples Ministry of Northern Development and Mines District Geologist Gary Grabowski takes a close look at a local sample of  lamprophyre, which is similar to the Wawa lamprophyre in the foreground. Lamprophyre in Wawa is known to contain diamonds.*

The encouraging news is that not only did the rocks have similar appearance; there were also chemical similarities.

Because of these findings, local explorationists now have a starting point and can make a decision.

The bottom line is that lamprophyre is relatively common in the Kirkland Lake and n the Cobalt areas. It has been noted historically in the camp for many years.

Past thinking was that its only importance was that it often had a spatial relationship to gold mineralization.

Armed with the new information provided by Grabowski and the MNDM, companies and individuals are starting to take a second look at lamprophyre.

In the Kirkland Lake area, some prospectors are working on this quietly and in Cobalt, PrairieC is one company that is openly talking about the potential of lamprophyres. Further to the south, Temex Resources has a diamond exploration program and although they are concentrating on kimberlite, you can rest assured they too are not turning a blind eye to lamprophyres. As long as the price of gold, silver, and base metals remains low, prospectors and junior companies need something new to look for. Grabowski may have given them the information they need to raise funds for exploration. Even if they do not find diamonds, or economic diamonds, the historic fact that lamprophyre often has a spatial relationship with gold mineralization still holds true, and the search for diamonds could lead to the discovery of more gold.  

*picture taken by Rick Owen - Northern Daily News April 17, 2001 issue

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