North Arrow Minerals Inc. has taken a leap forward in terms of the size of the area it held for its 100% owned Mel Diamond Project. The Company said it had increased its holding  from 7,500 ha to a substantial 56,075 ha.

In September 2017 North Arrow made the discovery of a new diamond bearing kimberlite field at Mel, located within 20 km of tide water on the Melville Peninsula, Nunavut. “North Arrow made the prospecting discovery of the ML-8 kimberlite near the up-ice termination of a well-defined kimberlite indicator mineral (KIM) train in the northern part of the project area (Mel North),” the Company reported. “A 62.1 kg sample of the ML-8 kimberlite returned 23 diamonds larger than the 0.106 mm sieve size, including a single, colourless diamond larger than the 0.85 mm sieve size.” The discovery was announced in October 2017.

Ken Armstrong, President and CEO of North Arrow commented, “The expanded Mel Project connects the Mel North area with the Mel South KIM anomaly, approximately 15 km southwest of the ML-8 kimberlite discovery. Mel is highly prospective for additional kimberlite and diamond discoveries in 2018 with exploration work, including drilling, scheduled to commence in May.”

The  Company plans to undertake exploration drilling, which, it said, will focus on defining the ML-8 kimberlite, as well as testing a series of targets at the head of three well defined KIM trains in the Mel North area. “A study of till and other glacial deposits is presently underway, intended to better understand the Quaternary (or glacial) geology and terrain within the expanded project, in particular the central project area between the Mel North and Mel South KIM trains,” North Arrow said.

Known to have a complex glacial history, this central area has seen very little till sampling earlier. The Company explained that results of the study will be used to plan a follow up till sampling programme during the summer of 2018 “to better define the Mel South KIM train and to identify new KIM targets within the property”.

Armstrong added, “The ML-8 kimberlite discovery is a highlight of North Arrow’s 2017 exploration programmes. Since becoming a diamond focused explorer in 2013, North Arrow is the only junior exploration company to discover a kimberlite field in Canada, having now discovered two of the five kimberlite fields found during that period. In addition to drilling at Mel, North Arrow is well positioned for further discovery in 2018 with spring drill programmes planned at the Loki and LDG Projects in the NWT as well as pending diamond results from a 210 tonne mini-bulk sample collected from the Q1-4 kimberlite at the Naujaat Project.”