North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Dunnedin Ventures Inc. April 5 said it is expanding its 2018 exploration program at Kahuna, a large diamond property about 16 miles (26 kilometers) northeast of Rankin Inlet and adjacent to Agnico Eagle's Meliadine gold mine.

Two kimberlites on the property – Kahuna and Notch – hosts 4.02 million carats of diamonds in 3.99 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.01 carats per metric tons.

The kimberlites in the resource are exposed at surface and remain open to extension along strike and at depth.

Overall, Dunnedin has defined more than 30 drill targets to test for diamondiferous kimberlite, 17 of which are scheduled to be drilled during the spring exploration program, currently underway.

"The abundance and quality of diamond indicator minerals at Dunnedin's Kahuna project is exceptional and bodes well for the potential discovery of new diamond sources," said Charles Fipke, discover of Ekati, Canada's first diamond mine, and an advisor to Dunnedin. "I look forward to the drill results and will continue assisting the Dunnedin team with the exploration and development of this project."

Dunnedin said it plans to follow-up on its spring program with a second phase of 2018 exploration and announced plans to raise an additional C$1.5 million to fund this work.

Advisors, management and close associates will participate for approximately C$1 million of the private placement.

In addition to testing new targets, the second phase of drilling will follow-up to define the size and shape of kimberlites found to be diamond-bearing during the spring program.

"Our diamond indicator mineral (DIM) work accurately highlights the location of all previously drill-confirmed diamond occurrences on the property. Many new, undrilled targets with similar DIM fingerprints in till have now been identified," said Dunnedin CEO Chris Taylor. "Some of the targets cannot be drilled with our current rig due to field conditions and we have more high-quality targets than we can test with our current drill budget."

While a rotary air blast rig is being utilized during phase-1 drilling, a core rig will be used to accurately define phases of kimberlite and correlate them to diamond content during second phase.

–SHANE LASLEY