TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX-V-listed diamond explorer North Arrow Minerals on Tuesday announced that it had recovered diamonds from the Pikoo project, a new kimberlite district located in central-eastern Saskatchewan that was discovered earlier this year.

The company said that high microdiamond counts, demonstrating the potential for a coarse diamond size distribution, had been returned from the PK150 kimberlite from which a 209.7 kg sample of drill core had returned 745 diamonds larger than the 0.106 mm sieve size, including 23 diamonds larger than the 0.85 mm sieve size.

The total weight of the +0.85 mm diamonds recovered from the sample was 0.2815 ct.

The company added that more than 95% of the diamonds were described as intact, white octahedrons and aggregates.

"To recover such relatively high counts of +0.85 mm diamonds from the first kimberlite discovered at Pikoo is an exceptional result and establishes Pikoo and the northern Sask Craton as a new diamond district in Canada,” North Arrow president and CEO Ken Armstrong said.

The PK150 was discovered as part of a short, ten-hole programme completed earlier this year, and many priority targets remained on the larger-than-33 000-ha property.

Armstrong added that one of the critical benefits for the project was its location close to transportation and power infrastructure, lying within 10 km of Saskatchewan Highway 911.

The PK150 kimberlite was discovered during a 2 002 m drilling programme completed in July, funded by North Arrow as part of an option agreement with Stornoway Diamond Corporation, under which North Arrow could earn an 80% interest in the Pikoo project.

North Arrow said the large property hosted additional kimberlite targets.

Exploration plans for 2014 would be finalised over the next number of months and work would probably include drilling, geophysical surveys and till sampling.

"Today's news validates North Arrow's strategic approach of targeting and assembling a prospective portfolio of Canadian diamond projects that benefit from significant historical exploration, and are now at an advanced or drill-ready stage.

“North Arrow is well positioned with more than $6-million cash on hand to further advance this new diamond discovery at Pikoo, to collect a 500-plus carat diamond parcel from the advanced Qilalugaq project, in Nunavut, and to evaluate unexplained kimberlite indicator mineral trains at the Redemption and Lac de Gras diamond projects, in the heart of the Lac de Gras diamond district of the Northwest Territories,” Armstrong said.