Following the arrival of a seven-person Russian team of geologists and mineralogists, AIM-listed Botswana Diamonds has started exploration work at its PL 085 license, as well as heavy concentrate sampling at its PL 206 license.
Last week Botswana Diamonds’ shares went up after the company announced that it expects a specialist Russian team of geologists and mineralogists to arrive at its joint venture project with Alrosa in Botswana. Heavy concentrate sampling to evaluate kimberlite indicator minerals and their proximity from potential primary sources, as well as drilling, was expected to start on anomaly AN210-1, on license PL 210, which would follow the exploration work. Drilling is expected to be completed this month. The target was an anomaly of good indicator minerals with coincident magnetic and electromagnetic signatures. Three boreholes, to a depth of 110 m each, would be drilled. Core samples would then be analyzed for the presence of kimberlite, with an immediate visual inspection by the on-site joint venture partner Alrosa’s mineralogists, to be followed by in-depth laboratory analysis of the cores at the Alrosa in-house facility in St Petersburg, Russia.
“Following this, the team will move to our licenses in the Gope region. On these small license areas, measuring 46 km2, 48 km2 and 3.3 km2 respectively, exploration will start with verification sampling using small-grid geophysics and magnetic geochemistry. The objective is to define potential new drill targets,” the company said in a statement.
