seriously................. Tawana has just announced that it has recovered a 4.66 carat stone from the Tawana alluvials, down from De Beers' Finsch diamond pipe.
It's obviously important, because the diamond is worth money. But it's more important in what it means to the likely grade of the alluvials. Diamonds generate the classic nugget effect for sampling. Either you get one in the sample, or you don't. So how representative is the sample.
Tawana has taken a few thousand tonnes of samples, and is currently processing them. The processing to date has generated a value in carats per hundred tonnes. But as they pointed out in the presentation, from the amount they've sampled so far, they expect the grade from a full size mine to be significantly higher. Why? Because they haven't yet got the full size distribution of diamonds that they would expect from diamondiferous alluvials. Like sampling, it's all about statistics. And this discovery - 4.66 carats versus the previous biggest stone of 2.02 carats - proves the point. It means that the development of the alluvials is even more likely beccause as they keep processing the samples they'll keep pushing the grade up, and it will look even more attractive to develop.
TAW Price at posting:
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