Pangolin Diamonds on Wednesday announced that it had discovered what
it believes to be one of the largest-ever kimberlite pipes in the world
at its Tsabong North project, in Botswana.
The company said it had modelled the kimberlite at 270 ha, making it
comparable wit the Se251 kimberlite in Angola that measures 220 ha, the
MK1 kimberlite in Botswana that measures 180 ha, and the Mwadui
kimberlite in Tanzania, which measures 146 ha.
The new discovery stemmed from Pangolin’s discovery earlier this year
of two kimberlites, Magi-01 and Magi-02, at the project. These
kimberlites were found to be part a single intrusive complex, after the
company submitted aeromagnetic data for an independent National
Instrument 43-101-compliant review by South Africa-based Xcalibur
Airborne Geophysics, of Pretoria.
Based on these observations, Pangolin drilled a new hole between the
Magi-01 and Magi-02 kimberlites. The new hole intersected the same sandy
tuffs recognised in the two previous drill holes, confirming that the
Magi-kimberlite was a single large body and not two smaller kimberlites,
as previously believed.
The Magi-kimberlite had now been confirmed over a distance of 1 200 m
in an east-west direction. The average depth at which the crater facies
sediments were intersected was about 35 m. The depths of intersection of
the sandy tuffs vary between 55.3 m and 61.5 m.
Pangolin said further work would start shortly, with seven additional
holes laid out for core drilling to determine the final size of the
Magi-kimberlite. Each hole would intersect at least 100 m of kimberlite
to recover any additional indicator minerals, and any diamonds.
“The geophysical models available to Pangolin strongly suggest the
potential for discovering additional very large kimberlites in the
Tsabong North project area,” Pangolin chairperson Dr Leon Daniels
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