Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. ("Mountain Province", the "Company") (TSX andNASDAQ: MPVD) today announces that the winter exploration program at their Kennady North Project has begun.
Image: Mountain Province Diamonds begins Kennady North Winter exploration program. Photo: courtesy of etaphop photo/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
The Kennady North Project encompasses 67,164 hectares of prospective claims and leases that are directly adjacent to the Gahcho Kué Mine and are 100%-held by the Company. The winter program will focus on drill-testing several combined indicator and geophysical targets located west and southwest of the Hearne kimberlite, which is part of the Gahcho Kué Mine. The drilling program plans for 2,000 meters of drilling to test the exploration targets.
In the latter half of 2018, the Company compiled all the in-house data acquired since the start of the Kennady North Project into a user-friendly GIS format. Proprietary data relevant to the Kennady North Project was also acquired from GGL Resources Inc. through a lease and one-time cash payment. The combined database was then linked to a recently-completed glacial mapping and sampling program that incorporated a LIDAR survey of the project area. The resulting product was a glacial till ranking scheme that could be combined with geophysical data to generate target areas for follow-up sampling and drilling. Several of these target areas are the focus of exploration in 2019.
Vice President of Exploration for Mountain Province Dr. Tom McCandless comments, “In addition to the successful advancement of the Kelvin and Faraday Kimberlites, we are very pleased to have completed the compilation of all the regional exploration data into a consolidated database which will provide the basis for all future work on our wholly owned properties near the GK Mine. We have also augmented our database with new interpretations of the surficial geology in order to prioritize all historical, as well as newly acquired data.”
The Company has also completed the caustic fusion recovery of microdiamonds from core recovered in drilling programs conducted on Faraday 2 in 2017 and 2018. The drilling programs extended the Faraday 2 kimberlite by over 150 metres to the northwest. Geologic modeling of this northwest extension has confirmed that lithologies identified in the upper portion of Faraday 2 are also present in the extension.
President and Chief Executive Officer for Mountain Province Stuart Brown commented: “Our microdiamond results from the northwest extension of Faraday 2 are excellent but not unexpected, as kimberlites within the Kelvin-Faraday corridor exhibit a remarkable consistency of grade across internal lithologies. Our early indications are that the inclusion of the northwest extension into Faraday 2 will contribute substantially to the value of this resource within our Kennady portfolio.”
The microdiamond results will be incorporated into an updated resource estimate for Faraday 2 that will be completed in the coming weeks. Drilling of select exploration targets is expected to start in early March.
Source: Company Press Release