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.