Diamond plays sparkle in northern Canada

Gary Park, Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

The lure of diamonds is spreading through Canada’s Arctic, with reports of new kimberlite finds in a lightly explored region of eastern Nunavut.

Cumberland Resources and Comaplex Minerals have completed drilling on their Meliadine East project on the Melville Peninsula with an announcement that they have intersected kimberlite on 11 of 12 geophysical targets.

Cumberland director Glen Dickson said the discoveries look like pipes, but cautioned that there are only one or two holes in the targets.

He said the size and dimension have yet to be established — probably within three months once the samples have been analyzed by the Saskatchewan Research Council.

Meantime, Shear Minerals and Northern Empire Minerals are spending C$2.5 million exploring the Churchill project, which is northeast of Meliadine and covers about 1,079 square miles. So far, kimberlite has been intersected in each of the first three targets drilled, giving a 50 percent boost to shares of Shear on the S&P-TSX Venture Exchange.