VR Discovers Diamonds in Two Separate Intervals in Hole 003 at Northway, 600 metres from the Discovery in Hole 001

September 28, 2023, Vancouver, B.C.: VR Resources Ltd. (TSX.V: VRR, FSE: 5VR; OTCQB: VRRCF), the “Company”, or “VR”, has received complete results from caustic fusion and mineralogy for all three drill holes completed into the kimberlite breccia pipe complex on its Northway property in Northern Ontario.

Figure 1. Photos of microdiamonds 63m and 220m below the top of the kimberlite pipe in NW23-003.

Microdiamonds were recovered in 2 separate intervals within drill hole NW23-003, the last of the three first-pass drill holes into the 1.2 km magnetic anomaly at Northway. The intersection spanned 354 metres of kimberlite, for 723 kg of sawn NQ (47.6mm diameter) sample material. There were no microdiamonds in 173 kg from NW23-002. Attributes for all four of the microdiamonds recovered in Hole 003 are the same as the microdiamond in Hole 001:

 transparent, colourless;
 clear, free of inclusions, and;
 fragment of a larger diamond.

A +106 micron microdiamond was recovered at 335 m, with 3 additional +75 micron diamonds found from 488 – 510 m (Table 1). They are hosted in pyroclastic kimberlitic breccia, KPK rock, characterized by:

 Concentrated chrome-diopside xenocrysts (core photographs in Figure 2);
 Xenoliths of dunite, pyroxenite, and glimmerite (core photographs in Figure 3), and;
 Autoliths of KPK rock (core photographs in Figure 4).

Importantly, phlogopite xenocrysts and mineral grains within xenoliths plot within the kimberlite field on the Ti-Al plot (Figure 5), and in the kimberlite-orangeite field on the Al-Fe plot, consistent with hole 001. Further, titanium-potassium richterite in magmaclasts indicate an upper mantle source for the kimberlite.

Holes 002 and 003 were collared at the same site located approximately 450 m to the northwest of Hole 001 located near the eastern margin of the breccia pipe complex where a microdiamond was recovered in the crater facies of kimberlite mudstone at the top of the pipe (see NR23-18; Sept. 12, 2023). As such:

 Microdiamonds are present across 600 m of the breccia pipe complex (map in Figure 6), and;
 Microdiamonds are present over 220 vertical metres, starting at the top (profile in Figure 7).

The boundary conditions for the 1.2 magnetic anomaly at Northway are consistent amongst an array of different plan maps and 3D inversion block models. That said, the new drilling shows that Northway may be either: a complex of separate, adjacent breccia pipes as implied in Figure 6, or; a single, rooted pipe that fans upwards into complex geometries at the top as implied in the profile in Figure 7. Regardless:

 Hole 001 transected only 30m of the top of the breccia pipe complex before the drill hole caved and was abandoned; the KPK rock below the maar-facies with microdiamonds is untested, and;
 A longer intersection of pyroclastic kimberlite breccia was achieved in hole NW23-003 located some 450 m to the northwest, but the breadth of the magnetic center remains untested.

From VR’s CEO, Dr. Michael Gunning, “It’s really quite something; Northway has produced microdiamonds in two of the first three reconnaissance drill holes ever put into the large breccia pipe complex, and more, both holes are arguably yet incomplete in terms of their vertical and lateral transect of the kimberlite.

Scale is important. Fragments of clear, transparent and inclusion-free diamonds occur across some 600m of the breccia pipe complex, and over 220 metres vertically starting from the crater facies at the top. Composition is equally important. Like in Hole 001, the composition of the pyroclastic kimberlite diatreme breccia (KPK) in Hole 003 falls within the kimberlite–orangeite compositional range, with Ti-K richterite grains indicative of an upper mantle origin for the pipe.

The results from the first three reconnaissance holes underscores the diamond potential at Northway in relation to the sheer volume of the breccia pipe complex itself, and in relation the number of targets around it, never previously explored or drilled and potentially representing a new field of Devonian-aged, diamondiferous kimberlite pipes in the northern Superior craton in northern Ontario, and located along the Ontario Northern railroad.

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