Geology lessons for one and all as Stockhouse investors offer due diligence.
Investors on the Metalex Ventures Ltd. (TSX: V.MTX, Stock Forum) Bullboard spent some time discussing the finer points of diamond geology over the last few days – a conversation best left reprinted exactly as originally written (spelling errors and all), and read by those with something of a background in geology. Kudos to Stockhouse members that know a thing or two about what they’re talking about (at least, so it seems) for sharing their knowledge, opinion and analysis with the rest of the site.
coolshivers: Just some info on a down down day. I was curious and did some surfing.
In relation to gold and purple in the conglobing pipes. I guess for me I have to think of it more like a bodies of massive lamproites surrounded by zones of volcanic breccias. I can barely spell conglobe-rent so for me its best I think like a lamproite. Since the data on these things are thin I will have to leave it up to a larger sample to speculate off stones of larger size. What’s interesting is a direct comparison to Argyle. Since it was mentioned in the release here are the side by side comparisons:
EKOMIAK
brown (30 per cent), purple (22 per cent), grey (15 per cent), yellow (9 per cent), green (5 per cent) and amber (2 per cent). Eighty-three per cent of the diamonds recovered and described from the properties were coloured diamonds
Argyle
80% of Argyle diamonds are brown, followed by 16% yellow, 2% white, 2% grey, and less than 1% pink and green. Despite the low production volume of pink and red diamonds, the Argyle mine is the only reliable source in the world, producing 90 to 95% of all pink and red diamonds
How big is Ekomiak? Not sure if I can guess???
The diamond-bearing Ekomiak Conglomerate extends for four kilometers and up to 500 meters in width with individual outcrops measuring 500 meters by 400 meters in size. Did they find 9 or 16?? Looks good to me!! Will it take 5 years to bulk sample? Will it cost 10 million to sample? Or will the Wemindji relationship actually work here!?
propertymad: Coolshivers, the leadbetter diamonds are predominantly gem or near-gem quality......no preponderance of boart here as in Argyle.... ryder is on the record as stating that the quebec conglomerates (they are not Lamproites by the way, but may be derived from lamproites) are of similar geological signatures as leadbetter....
having said all that leadbetter is predominantly clear white stones (63%) with 16% yellow, 10% amber and 11% a mix of other colours - very different colour characteristics than ekomiak5 and for that matter the adjacent mori property.
actually Mori vs ekomiak is a good comparison....
go and have a look at how radiant the canary yellow micros from Mori are....as you know mtx and dor have 30% of this project
mori - 52.4% coloured stones
26.8% brown
14% grey
5.5% yellow
5.1% green
0.8% orange
0.1% purple
0.1% amber
0.1% black
a single pink diamond was also recovered (press release June 25th 2008)
DOR's 100% owned PEM 1404 property is far less "colourful" than its neighbour Ekomiak 5 (and Mori for that matter). It contained 1286 diamonds from a 35 kilogram grab sample.... however only 26 of them were coloured including 6 pink, 14 amber and 6 yellow...... Pem is adjacent to Ekomiak 5....
on the combined Pem and ekomiak 5 properties the diamondiferous conglomerates outcrop for a distance of 15km along strike and up to 1km in width....... the combined PEM/Ekomiak 5 property would appear to have a lot in common to the combined leadbetter/mori property
its an enigma wrapped in a conundrum which could yet throw up some corundum.... as Leadbetter has done....
DOR/MTX are essentially writing the manual for conglomerate diamond exploration...... theres no point bringing any kimberlitic/lamproitic experience or bias to bear on the project as its completely irrelevant in the context of conglomerates...
To aid your thinking, the deposit model currently proposed for leadbetter is that of an Archean debris flow proximal to a diamond source rock (kimberlite or lamproite)
the best explanation I have seen is the Paleoplacer model.....
http://www.mrnf.gouv.qc.ca/english/mines/quebec-mines/2004-06/apple-modele.jsp
