Brooking gives up ‘exceptional’ diamond recovery for Lucapa Diamond Company
Lucapa Diamond Company has recovered 1,100 macro and micro diamonds in its second drill hole at the Little Spring Creek prospect, which is part of the Brooking project near the former Ellendale diamond mine in WA.
Lucapa Diamond Company (ASX: LOM) has been drilling at its 80%-owned Brooking project, near the Ellendale mine in Western Australia, with the latest drill core sample producing 1,100 diamonds.
The diamonds were recovered from about 178kg of drill core from the Little Spring Creek prospect and included 18 macro diamonds in excess of 0.5mm, and 1,082 micro diamonds.
According to Lucapa, on a per kilogram of sample basis and using a 75 micron cut-off, this latest results is three times that of the discovery hole drilled at the project where 119 micro and macro diamonds were found.
This latest hole was drilled about 30m north of the discovery hole and intersected lamproite from near surface to about 70m below surface.
“The latest micro-diamond results from Little Spring Creek are some of the best I have seen in the diamond space,” Lucapa managing director Stephen Wetherall said.
“To recover 1,100 micro and macro diamonds from a 178kg sample from a single drill hole is remarkable,” he added.
This drill hole was part of the follow-up drilling campaign that started at Little Spring Creek in June, with assays pending from seven more holes.
Lucapa said it had intersected visible lamproitic material in all the holes during the follow up program, apart from an extra hole that tested a zone about 350m north-east of Little Spring Creek.
In addition to drilling, Lucapa carried out a helicopter-borne new resolution geophysics survey across the 118 square kilometre project.
The survey has determined an additional 11 priority targets across Brooking, including areas where diamonds and high levels of lamproite indicator minerals were also found during surface sampling.
One of the targets includes a 7 hectare anomaly at Katie’s Bore, where surface sampling uncovered 20 diamonds.
“These exceptional results at Brooking underscore the prospectivity for diamond deposits in the Kimberley region of WA, which hosts the world renowned deposits of Argyle and, previously, Ellendale,” Mr Wetherall said.
“We look forward the next phase of exploration at Brooking with great excitement,” he added.
Lucapa is evaluating the merits of trenching and bulk sampling at Little Spring Creek to follow up on the “spectacular” micro diamond discoveries in the two drill holes.
Additionally, preparations are underway to drill the 11 targets identified via the helicopter survey.
By mid-afternoon, Lucapa’s share price had risen 10.64% to $0.26.