Lucapa Diamond Company has made a diamond-bearing lamproite discovery at its 80 per cent owned Brooking diamond project in the West Kimberley of Western Australia.
Perth-based Lucapa has reported near-surface lamproite intersections in drilling at the Little Creek prospect, which is within 50km of the Ellendale diamond mine.
Lucapa recovered 119 diamonds, including seven macro-diamonds of up to 1mm, from micro-diamond analysis of 86.8kg of core sample from one hole at Little Spring Creek.
The company said discovery of diamond-bearing lamproite validated results from previous surface sapling programs at Little Spring Creek, where 24 diamonds and highly-anomalous concentrations of lamproite indicator minerals were recovered.
Lucapa managing director Stephen Wetherall said he was delighted with such spectacular results from the Brooking drilling program.
“The main goal of our drilling program at Brooking was to identify lamproitic material, which could be the primary source of the diamonds and indicator minerals recovered from the earlier surface sampling programs,” Wetherall said.
“The high concentrations of micro-diamonds and macro-diamonds recovered from the Little Spring Creek drill core sample is extremely encouraging and the counts are very similar to the MIDA results from the Ellendale E9 and E4 diamond pipes, 50km west in the West Kimberley lamproite field.
“We now look forward to follow-up programs at Little Spring Creek to identify the extent of the diamondiferous lamproite body and to further assess its diamond content when conditions permit.”
The follow-up drilling and bulk sampling programs will take place following the wet season in northern WA, Lucapa said.
The company believes the results from the Little Spring Creeek target also enhance the prospectively of the other targets within the Brooking project.
It plans to submit drill core from the Santa Fe and North East Creek prospects for further analysis while additional field work is planned across the broader project
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