Positive results of a deep drilling program in northern Canada were announced by diamond company Mountain Province, Diamond Intelligence reports. The Tuzo drilling at the Gahcho Kue site at Kennady Lake in the Northwest Territories demonstrated that the depth of the resource is much greater than the figure currently acknowledged. The kimberlite pipe was revealed to descend to a depth of 564 meters, a full 214 meters deeper than the 350 meters originally declared.



Caustic fusion conducted at a laboratory in the western province of Saskatchewan turned up micro-diamonds, smaller than 0.3 millimeters in size. Despite their tiny size, Mountain Province Diamonds president and chief executive officer Patrick Evans said he believes that their discovery is ample proof of a potentially massive diamond deposit at Gahcho Kue. Three of the project's four diamondiferous kimberlites are estimated to contain approximately 49 million carats of diamonds, according to Diamond Intelligence.