North Arrow Minerals Inc. June 21 announce the start of a C$5.6 million bulk sampling program at its Naujaat diamond project about nine kilometers (5.6 miles) from the hamlet of Naujaat on the shore of Hudson Bay in Nunavut.

This large sampling program is funded by Burgundy Diamond Mines, an Australia-based company formerly known as EHR Resources Ltd. that entered into a deal with North Arrow to earn a 40% interest in the Naujaat project by investing C$5.6 million to collect a 1,500- to 2,000-metric ton preliminary bulk sample from the Q1-4 diamond deposit at Naujaat.

Q1-4 kimberlite is the largest and richest of at least eight kimberlite pipes North Arrow has identified so far at Naujaat.

According to a calculation completed in 2013, the top 205 meters of the Q1-4 kimberlite hosts 48.8 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 53.6 carats per hundred metric ton, or 26.1 million carats of diamonds.

Amongst the diamonds in Q1-4 is a distinct population of high-value, fancy, yellow to orange-yellow stones.

To confirm the size distribution and character of these potentially high-value yellow diamonds, crews are preparing to collect up to a 2,000-metric-ton sample from Q1-4 by the end of August.

This sample will be shipped south in September, with processing and diamond recovery expected to start in the fourth quarter of calendar 2021.

In the meantime, North Arrow is funding its own exploration at CSI, another Nunavut diamond project recently staked by the company.

Situated immediately west of the diamondiferous Muskox and Jericho kimberlites, CSI covers an area that could potentially host a bedrock source for regionally anomalous kimberlite indicator mineral samples reported by earlier workers.

North Arrow's current till sampling is intended to test new interpretations of surficial geology in the area which could help identify a kimberlite source within the property.

Early this year, North Arrow also completed a six-hole drill program to test gravity geophysical anomalies indicative of potential kimberlite bodies at its Loki project in the diamond-rich Lac de Gras region of Northwest Territories.

Nick Thomas for North Arrow Minerals Inc.

A mini-excavator collects a 210-metric-ton sample of the Q1-4 kimberlite during the 2017 field program at Naujaat.

These gravity anomalies, however, were from significant ice lenses within glacial overburden and no kimberlites were discovered during the winter drilling.

North Arrow says a prominent kimberlite indicator mineral train that terminates in the Loki area remains unexplained and overburden samples collected during the program will be processed for indicator minerals to help with the company's ongoing interpretation of the project.

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Shane Lasley, Publisher

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