RE: Calling Rockingeorockin'
this section of the news release last week from SRM/SWY deals with impact of crushing on diamond shapes and populations...... interesting findings.
regards,
p
Kahuna Breakage Study and Diamond Descriptions
MSC was contracted to undertake an evaluation of the value characteristics of the Kahuna macrodiamonds. MSC completed detailed characterization of a total of 1,757 stones out of the total population of 11,347 diamonds. These included all stones falling on the +7 DTC sieve class and larger (464 diamonds in total), plus representative sub-sets of the smaller DTC sieve classes (1,293 diamonds in total). The work was carried out at MSC's secured diamond recovery facility in North Vancouver, BC. It should be noted that this exercise was not aimed at establishing a market-based valuation of the Kahuna diamond parcel. The primary goal of the study was to investigate the value characteristics of the macrodiamonds and how these vary with increasing diamond size.
MSC describes the Kahuna diamond population as having encouraging value characteristics. Most notably, the diamonds contain a high abundance of colourless and near colourless varieties and octahedral shapes are the dominant morphology. Diamond clarity in the smaller DTC size classes is described as being mostly very good, however, clarity does decrease in the larger DTC size classes due to an increase in the frequency of inclusions and internal fractures, and not due to the presence of coating on the diamonds. The larger stones also show increased fragmentation, which MSC believes to be due to the increase in occurrence of inclusions and fractures. In terms of cutability, the majority of the stones were classified as having elongated (B) forms that would most likely place them into the makeable category. Pie charts of the diamond population will be posted to
www.shearminerals.com.
A breakage assessment was completed internally in order to firstly asses the Kahuna diamonds for physical evidence of breakage through mechanical means (i.e. man-made through crushing) and secondly to determine if the large diamond fragments recovered could be fitted back together to represent a single stone or stones. Diamonds shapes and populations were compared from samples #2 (no crushing) and #3 (crushed) and no significant difference was noted. In order to piece together the diamond fragments all diamond surfaces were examined for resorption, crystallographic orientation, catholuminesence and other mineralogical characteristics. Based on this it was concluded that seven fragmented diamonds, totaling 13.42 carats, most likely originated from a single, larger stone. It also indicated that some of these diamonds exhibited physical evidence of breakage through mechanical means during processing.