TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX-V-listed explorer Pangolin Diamonds on Tuesday announced that it had discovered a second kimberlite pipe within its 1 545 km² Tsabong North project, in Botswana.

The company’s newly discovered Magi-02 kimberlite had an aeromagnetic anomaly of more than 20 ha and, along with the previously announced Magi-01, this represented two of the seven new kimberlites found in Botswana in the last five years.

Pangolin said specialist diamond exploration consultant Manfred R Marx, who is credited with leading the field team that discovered what is now the largest openpit diamond mine in the world – the Orapa diamond mine – in April, 1967, and who had recently joined Pangolin’s exploration team, inferred that Pangolin’s discoveries could contain micaceous sandy tuffs similar to those observed in the lamproite volcanic structure at Rio Tinto’s Argyle diamond mine, in Western Australia.

The Argyle diamond mine was one of the world's largest diamond producers and was the largest producer of natural coloured diamonds. It currently had a grade of 4 ct/t.

“I am extremely encouraged with Pangolin’s exploration results to date and look forward to building on that success,” he said.

Pangolin said that, based on these positive results, two more core drill holes intersecting at least 100 m of kimberlite would be drilled on the Magi-01 and Magi-02 kimberlites to sample kimberlite indicator mineral and microdiamond recovery.

The company would also continue to drill other previously identified kimberlite targets in the immediate area of the Tsabong North project, before returning to the other already identified kimberlites.

The Tsabong North project, located about 100 km north of the town of Tsabong in south-western Botswana, comprises anomalous concentrations of kimberlite indicators and has large geobotanical features. Pangolin had already identified more than 50 drill-ready aeromagnetic targets in the project area, several of which have surface areas of more than 20 ha.