Lucapa Diamond Company unearthed the diamonds in a 187kg sample of drill core during its operation at Brooking Mine, 1,800km north of Perth. Chairman Miles Kennedy told ABC News the “unprecedented” find was the company’s second significant discovery since it began drilling for lamproite at Little Spring Creek last year.
"It is three times as good as the first sensational find, so these two results together basically confirm that we certainly have one diamondiferous lamproite," he said.
"It's early days, but it looks as if we have found Australia's next diamond field and if that is the case, this is the beginning of a very long and happy developing story."
Kennedy established Ellendale Mine almost 25 years ago and said advancements in technology have assisted in the mining company’s operations. Since Kimberley Diamond Company was placed under administration at Ellendale mine in 2015, Kennedy and the team at Lucapa have closed in on surrounding areas by conducting geophysical mapping surveys.
"We were able to find and mine diamonds at Ellendale, we also explored the Brooking Little Spring area [but] we didn't have the great geological tools like we have today," he said.
"As it turned out, we missed these targets by a kilometre [and] the new tools seem to be indicating that this is in fact a whole new discovery."
The company used helicopter driven technology to survey the Brooking Mine project that assisted in identifying 11 additional drilling targets within a 10km radius of Little Spring Creek.
Lucapa managing director Stephen Wetherall told Index Online the company “is looking forward to the next phase of exploration at Brooking with great excitement.”
“The latest micro-diamond results from Little Spring Creek are some of the best I have seen in the diamond space. To recover 1,100 micro and macro-diamonds from a 178kg sample from a single drill hole is remarkable,” he said.
“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.”
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