Kennady North Project

 mine, diamond mine

This is the area covered by the Kennady North Diamond Project which is comprised of thirteen leases and claims, and the full land package comprises twenty-two mineral leases and fifty-eight mineral claims totaling 160,997.16 acres (65,154.66 hectares).

The property was originally held by Mountain Province Diamonds (MPV) 49% and De Beers Canada Ltd. 51% as part of the original Gacho Kue joint venture. In order to focus developement on Gacho Kue, on April 25, 2012 shareholders in the joint venture voted 99.5% in favour to spin off this property to a new company named Kennady Diamonds Inc. This project land was removed from the joint venture land under an agreement with DeBeers then MPV transferred the ground and related data to the Kennady North project, as well as working capital in the amount of $3 million which was part of the agreement.

At that point Kennady owned 100% of the project. In March 2018 MPV and Kennady announced they had entered into an agreement whereas MPV would acquire all issued and outstanding common shares of Kennady by way of a court-approved plan of arrangement. Under the terms of the Transaction Kennady shareholders will receive 0.975 of a Mountain Province common share for each Kennady common share, and once complete the new ownership structure is MPV shareholders 76% and Kennady shareholders 24%.

Historically many exploration programs have been conducted on the property Since 1992 by multiple companies which include GGL Diamond Corp, Winspear Resources Lt, SouthernEra Resources Ltd, Canamera Geological Ltd, and the joint venture comprising Mountain Province Inc. In 1997 Monopros Ltd (now DeBeers Canada Exploration Inc – DCEI), MPV, and Camphor Ventures Inc created a joint venture. On January 19, 2007 MPV announced that Camphor Ventures had accepted its offer to acquire all of the common shares on the basis of 0.41 MPV common share for each Camphor Common Share.

Regionally Kennady North is located in the southeastern Slave Geological Province which is an Archean terrane ranging in age from 4.03 Ga to 2.55 Ga. The area consists of granodiorite intrusions, high-grade gneisses and migmatites, along with volcanic and sedimentary supracrustal rocks that are typical of many greenstone belts in the Slave Province.

Locally the emplacement of kimberlite bodies in the Kennady Lake area occurred between 531-542 Ma +/- 2.5 to 11.0 Ma during the Cambrian Period. 87Rb-87Sr geochronology indicates that the age of the 5034 pipe is 538.6 +/- 2.51 Ma. Age dating for two samples of groundmass phlogopite (87Rb-87Sr geochronology) obtained from the Kelvin kimberlite has returned dates ranging between 536-551 Ma and 531-546 Ma both +/- 8 Ma. These emplacement ages are coincident with the Gahcho Kué kimberlites. Erosional processes since emplacement may have been significant, stripping the kimberlites almost to their root zones but still preserving the hypabyssal and diatreme facies. This significant erosion has allowed for assessment of an unconventional style of kimberlite which approximates an ideal kimberlite pipe-like body, but inclined.

Currently 4 Kimberlite bodies have been identied in the project area named: Kelvin, Faraday which has 3 separate kimerlites, Doyle Sill, and MV Sill. The Kelvin kimberlite has a morphology that is variable as depth increases and it turns twice and becomes wider at depth. It is comprised of a “north” and “south” limb, and within the body seven individual kimberlite units have been identified. The Kelvin kimberlite has been delineated over 700 m in strike length with a variable thickness from 30 m at the south end, to over 70 m at the north end. It varies in height from 60 m at the south end and up to 200 m at the north end. It has an indicated resource of 8.5 million tonnes at a grade of 1.6 carats per tonne for a total of 13.62 million carats, and is open at depth.

The Faraday 1 kimberlite was first identified in the spring of 2015 and is infilled with volcaniclastic kimberlite (KPK) but is associated with significant amounts of hypabyssal kimberlite. The proportion of marginal breccia versus other kimberlite material is also higher than that noted in the other kimberlites. During 2017 drilling results showed that the Faraday 1 and Faraday 3 coalesce to form one body at around the lakeshore of Faraday Lake. Faraday 1 has been delineated over 200 m in length with variable widths between 30-60 m and in height between 10-30 m.

The Faraday 2 kimberlite is comprised of seven individual kimberlite units that are dominated by volcaniclastic Kimberley-type pyroclastic kimberlite (KPK), with lesser coherent hypabyssal kimberlite (CK-HK). A significant amount of texturally transitional kimberlite is also hosted in Faraday 2. It has been delineated over 600 m in length with variable thickness from 20 m to 90 m and in height from 20 m to 60 m, and it remains open to the northwest.

The Faraday 3 Kimberlite, discovered in early 2016, has been delineated over 400 m, varies in width between 40 -150 m and in height from 20-50 m. A significant amount of detailed geology, both macroscopic and petrographic work, has been undertaken to help establish four kimberlite units. The primary texture, like the other kimberlites in the area, is dominated by volcaniclastic kimberlite (Kimberley-type pyroclastic kimberlite – KPK) with lesser amounts of hypabyssal kimberlite (HK). Between these two members there is also texturally transitional kimberlite dominated by volcaniclastic-type material. In 2017 drilling established that Faraday 1 and Faraday 3 coalesce to form one complex kimberlite body. Due to this the Kimberlite body is now referred to as the Faraday 1-3 kimberlite.