Saturday, July 29, 2017

Hole DD33

Hole DD33

The 33rd diamond drillhole into CH-6 at Chidliak was completed recently.
The news release is located here -- 2017-07-26

It was the first successful hole of the summer program and was completed at a drillhole size of HQ. HQ is larger then the usual NQ hole and was picked to establish some geotechnical data in the country rock near CH-6 pipe. In addition to the geotechnical aspect of this hole, it was also used to find deeper pierce points on the West and East wall of the pipe.

Here is an image from Peregrine Diamonds news release:



The targeted depth point on the West side (first entry into the kimberlite) was not as expected. The drillhole ran into kimberlite much earlier then expected and therefore as a higher (elevation) pierce point then it was trying to achieve. However, finding more kimberlite at slightly high elevations and expanding out the west wall of the pipe will have a significant influence on the number of carats contained and that will directly influence the economics in a positive nature.

The targeted depth point on the East side (exit from the kimberlite) was as expected and maintained a steeply dipping pipe wall.

Beyond this, the drill team decided to extend the hole further into the country rock...probably to gain some additional geotechnical data and maybe just a hunch to go as far as the hole could go.

This turned into some great news as the drilling intersected some new kimberlite material that did not adhere immediately to any signature or properties related to existing kimberlite within the pipe.

Here is the excerpt from the news release:

"Hole DD33 was lost at 433 metre down hole length, at 360.6 mbs and terminated in kimberlite. A 32-centimetre intersection of slightly altered olivine-macrocrystic kimberlite was logged at the end of the last core barrel retrieved. The nature and relationship with CH-6, if any, of this deeper kimberlite intersection is unknown at this time. Future deep drilling from the eastern side of CH-6 will attempt to establish the nature, extent and continuity of this deeper kimberlite intersection."

The drilling finished with this open ended intersection at about 360 metres below surface and to the east of the current pipe wall. The extent of this new kimberlite intersection will be known later.

What does olivine-macrocystic mean?

Macrocystic simple means the size of the 'cysts' or in this case olivine cysts.
The size being -- macrocrystic (0.5–10 mm)

The intersection that Peregrine Diamonds has found has olivine cysts in the order of 0.5 to 10 mm in shapes.

Here is an example from CH-7 (KIM 1) showing some highlighted olivine cysts in the photo.
This is taken from the Chidliak Resource Technical update in 2016.



On the left image, the yellow or highlighted 'OL' are olivine cysts.

Peregrine Diamonds should be looking very closely at that current core intersection and will hopefully be able to get more core from drilling in the very new future.

The next step for that new kimberlite will be to send a reasonable sample to the SRC to determine if and how many diamonds it contains. That sample will probably need to be larger then the current core intersection they have.


Thursday, July 27, 2017

Drilling at Chidliak

Drilling at Chidliak

Peregrine Diamonds is bringing a 3rd drilling rig to Chidliak for an August 1st start date. This is to add an additional 2,000 to 4,000 metres of drilling capacity to the summer program. The original target for drilling during the summer was 4,500 to 5,000 metres (with 1 drill) and that was subsequently bumped up to 7,500 metres with 2 full drills onsite. A third one should add more capacity, but they have had some issues early on in the program. Once resolved, the possibility of hitting past 7,500 metres is realistic.

The last time Peregrine Diamonds had 2 core drill rigs on the site was in 2010 and the drill rigs were used on multiple anomalies in addition to the CH-6 mini bulk program (15 tonne).

History should give an indication of what the current program is capable of. Below are the details of what was accomplished by each drill rig in 2010.

Drill rig #1:



Drill rig #2:


When adding up the metres for July/August/September of that timeframe, one of the rigs did just under 3,000 metres and the other rig just did over 3,000 metres.
The advantage that Peregrine Diamonds has this year is that the 3 core drill rigs are all within a very limited vicinity. All at CH-6. These are not getting transported to other anomalies via helicopters.

With a quick look at the numbers, a very productive program could yield up to 10,000 metres. Considering July is almost over, a final target of 7,500 to 8,500 metres is probably a reasonable goal.

Results of the first successful drillhole of the season DD33 (2017-07-26 news) has been eye opening. Peregrine Diamonds just needs to focus on executing more successful holes at site to bring even more knowledge to the project. These exercises are about finding information...not just diamonds.