Botswana Diamonds recovers four stones at Thorny River

Botswana Diamonds has unearthed four 'high-quality' diamonds and several kimberlitic indicators from drill samples at the recently discovered River Kimberlite Extension at its Thorny River project in South Africa.
The dual-listed diamond explorer said the widest kimberlite down-the-hole intersection was 18 metres.  The drilling programme, it said, outlined a significant swell on the kimberlite dyke with a minimum strike length of 75 metres.  
The River Extension blow is contiguous with the diamondiferous River Blow which was discovered by the company in November 2020.  
Samples from these holes were taken at one-metre intervals and twelve of these totalling about 320kg were selected and submitted to an independent processing facility for assessment through screening, dense media separation and hand sorting.
Four diamonds of good colour, clarity and commercial quality were recovered along with extensive diamond indicators minerals.
"The recovery of high-quality diamonds and so many diamond indicators [are] very rare. The diamonds are of good quality," said company chairperson John Teeling.
"It is unusual to recover diamonds from a small sample of narrow reverse circulation drill holes so it bodes well for the potential of the Thorny River project.  Even more encouraging is that the size of the kimberlite from which the diamonds were recovered, is itself expanding."
He said the company will commence drilling the area between the two blows towards the end of August.
A total of 71 metres of kimberlite was intersected in 12 percussion holes in the newly discovered River kimberlite extension in May 2021, with an additional 19 metres of kimberlitic breccia.

Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished