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Snowfield Development Corp SNO
Shares issued 23,629,392 Sep 24 2003 close $ 0.19
Thursday September 25 2003 News Release
Mr. Robert Paterson reports
ADDITIONAL ANALYSIS CONFIRMS MUD LAKE KIMBERLITE SAMPLES
Snowfield Development has received additional mineral analyses of mineral concentrate derived from drill core recovered at its Ticho diamond project stage II drill program at Mud Lake, NWT, which resulted in the discovery of a kimberlite complex as reported in Stockwatch on March 10, 2003. The Ticho project, which includes Mud Lake, is located 50 kilometres southeast of Yellowknife, in close proximity to the diamondiferous Drybones Bay, Great Slave Lake kimberlite pipes, held by New Shoshoni Ventures Ltd.
Crushing, separation and picking of approximately 20,000 grains of kimberlite indicator minerals from sections of the kimberlite core were undertaken at Kennecott Canada Exploration's mineral processing laboratory in Thunder Bay. The first parcel of indicator minerals, as reported in Stockwatch on June 5, 2003, included 447 grains and this second parcel comprises an additional 500 grains. The first and second parcel of indicator minerals were forwarded to R.L. Barnett Geological Consulting Inc. of London, Ont., a well-recognized microprobe laboratory, where electron microprobe analysis was undertaken on the polished mineral grains for chemical analysis.
The first parcel of kimberlite indicator minerals established a unique mineral compositional variation of garnets, and this second parcel further confirms this remarkable and very encouraging data set. The second parcel of kimberlite indicator minerals contained only garnets, including pyrope, eclogitic and green garnets.
In the first parcel of pyrope garnets, a large percentage were found to contain high chromium oxide (Cr2O3) values between 10 and 15 per cent, with one garnet registering 20 per cent chromium oxide (Cr203) and 9 per cent calcium oxide (CaO). The second parcel adds more garnets into this chemical compositional range, with one garnet containing 12 per cent chromium oxide (Cr2O3) and 8.5 per cent calcium oxide (CaO), and a larger number of G10 garnets than in the first parcel. These two parcels of pyrope garnets fall within the chemical compositional range that is known to co-exist with diamonds.
In the first parcel, approximately 20 per cent of the eclogitic garnets were found to have sodium oxide (Na2O) levels greater than 0.07 per cent. Sodium oxide (Na2O) values in the second parcel were much higher, with some grains as high as 0.11 per cent. These two parcels of high sodium oxide (Na2O) eclogitic garnets fall within the chemical compositional range that is known to be associated with diamonds.
In the first parcel of green garnets, many grains had compositions with approximately 15 to 20 per cent calcium oxide (CaO) and 12 per cent chromium oxide (Cr2O3). The second parcel contains significantly more grains of green garnets, with compositions in the range of 13 to 22 per cent calcium oxide (CaO) and 6 to 17 per cent chromium oxide (Cr2O3). These two parcels of green garnets offer a unique distribution of mineral composition that fall within the miscibility gap between pyralspite (pyrope-almandine-spessartine) and ugrandite (uvarovite-grossular-andradite).
Review of the published information on kimberlites worldwide reveals that green garnets with similar chemical compositions as those found in the Mud Lake kimberlite fall in the same compositional range as reported in a number of diamond-bearing kimberlites, including the Premier, Kampfersdam, Newlands and Bultfontain mines in South Africa, and at the Udachnaya mine in Russia.
To the company's knowledge, such garnet compositions from the Mud Lake kimberlite are the first known occurrences of such mineral compositions to be found in bedrock in the Slave Craton. This data set is a significant indication of the potential for finding diamonds in the Mud Lake kimberlite body. Graphical representations of these analyses may be viewed on Snowfield's Web site at www.snowfield.com.
Gary Vivian, PGeol, of Aurora Geosciences Ltd., a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the content of this news release. Aurora Geosciences Ltd., of Yellowknife, NWT, was retained by Snowfield to provide an independent project overview on the Ticho project.