Churchill Project

Churchill Diamond Project Ownership
Shear Diamonds: 58.14%
Stornoway Diamonds: 41.86%

Churchill West Diamond Project Ownership
International Samuel Exploration: 65%
Shear Diamonds: 17.85%
Stornoway Diamonds: 12.25%
BHP Billiton: 4.9%

The 448,057 acre Churchill Diamond Project is a well established kimberlite field that was discovered in 2003 by Shear as operator and its partners. This project had its origins in a conceptual idea in 2001 and grew to be one of the largest drill programs for diamonds in Canada. Churchill was Shear's main focus prior to the Jericho acquisition and Shear continues to maintain the core claims.

Churchill Fast Facts

Location:	Nunavut
Known Kimberlites:	88
High Grade Kimberlite Dykes:	11
Targets	+400

Geographically, the Churchill Diamond Project is located on tidewater of Hudson Bay between the communities of Rankin Inlet and Chesterfield Inlet in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut, where exploration is facilitated using barge and rail access. Shear and its partners are well positioned to take advantage of available infrastructure at Churchill. Geologically the project is located in the Churchill Geologic Province cratonic rocks, a requirement when exploring for economic diamond deposits.

Past exploration in the region has been largely for gold and base metals, whereas systematic exploration for diamonds within the area has been limited to the last few years. Previous kimberlitic discoveries in the region include narrow kimberlite dykes intersected during drilling at the Meliadine gold deposit - Canada's largest unmined gold deposit - and the highly diamondiferous Parker Lake dyke. Other kimberlite discoveries throughout the Meliadine trend include 11 kimberlites drilled by Comaplex and Cumberland in 2003, and numerous kimberlite float occurrences reported by the Geological Survey of Canada.

The Churchill kimberlites drilled to date have been under very little overburden and are mostly land based. The kimberlite volcanism erupted over a 50 milllion year period ranging from 177 to 228 million years ago.

The partners have now narrowed down the areas of interest to two priority indicator mineral corridors -- the Josephine River Corridor and the Sedna Corridor. Both have been defined based on the most compelling G10 pyrope mineral chemistry which is prospective of diamond. Since 2000, more than 7,500 surface samples have been collected from which over 55,000 kimberlite indicator minerals have been picked. More than 15,000 have been microprobe confirmed. Samples contain a full suite of indicator minerals including pyrope garnets, eclogitic garnets, chromites, ilmenites, chrome-diopsides and olivines.

The following details the statistics for the key kimberlites on the Churchill Project based on drilling and bulk sampling.

Churchill Kimberlites: Dimensions Implied by Current Drilling

Kimberlite Body name	Body Type	Grade (Carats Per Tonne) for stones >0.85mm	Tonnes processed to date	Weight of Diamonds Recovered	Width (m)	Length (m)	Deepest Drill Intersection (metres below surface)	Dip (degrees)
PST 003	Dyke	2.18	3.55	7.72	0.8	150	53.9	Vertical
Kahuna	Dyke	1.04	356	336.69	3.5 - 4	5,500	151.6	Vertical
Notch	Dyke	0.862	17.26	14.87	1.5	3,000	79.5	Vertical
North Notch	Dyke	0.8	0.5	0.4	n/a	n/a	n/a	Vertical
Jigsaw	Dyke	0.49	5.15	2.53	1.3	1,000	n/a	Vertical
Meeka	Dyke	n/a	1.8	n/a	500	n/a	Vertical
Killiq	Dyke	n/a	n/a	n/a	0.75	n/a	n/a	Vertical

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