London-listed Botswana Diamonds has recovered four high-quality diamonds and abundant kimberlitic indicators from drill samples at the recently discovered River kimberlite extension at its Thorny River operation, in Limpopo, South Africa.
As previously announced, a total of 71 m of kimberlite was intersected in 12 percussion holes in the newly discovered River kimberlite extension in May, with an additional 19 m of kimberlitic breccia.
The widest kimberlite down-the-hole intersection was 18 m.
The drilling programme outlined a significant swell on the kimberlite dyke with a minimum strike length of 75 m.
The extension blow is contiguous with the diamondiferous River blow, which was discovered by the company in November 2020.
Samples from these holes were taken at 1 m intervals and 12 of these totalling about 320 kg were selected and submitted to an independent processing facility for assessment through screening, dense media separation and hand sorting.
Four diamonds of good colour, clarity and of commercial quality were recovered along with extensive diamond indicator minerals.
A further percussion drilling programme to assess the area between the River and the extension will begin within a month.
“The recovery of high-quality diamonds and so many diamond indicators is very rare. The diamonds are of good quality. It is unusual to recover diamonds from a small sample of narrow reverse circulation drill holes, so it bodes well for the potential of the Thorny River project.
“Even more encouraging is that the size of the kimberlite from which the diamonds were recovered, is itself expanding. We will commence drilling the area between the two blows towards the end of August,” chairperson John Teeling says.