{"id":1172993,"date":"2020-03-22T08:00:51","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T14:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1017764"},"modified":"2020-03-22T08:00:51","modified_gmt":"2020-03-22T14:00:51","slug":"lost-fragment-of-ancient-continent-found-at-de-beers-project-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1172993","title":{"rendered":"Lost fragment of ancient continent found at De Beers\u2019 project in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kimberlite rock samples recovered at De Beers Canada\u2019s Chidliak project in Nunavut unveiled the composition of the North Atlantic craton\u2014an ancient part of Earth\u2019s continental crust that stretches from Scotland to Labrador.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center d-xs-block d-sm-block d-md-none'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The samples were retrieved by Peregrine Diamonds, a junior exploration company that was acquired by De Beers in 2018, and were later on analyzed by a team of researchers at the University of British Columbia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Once at the lab, the group of scientists noticed that the pieces bore a mineral signature that matched other portions of the North Atlantic craton.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Chidliak is located on Canada\u2019s Baffin Island, approximately 120 kilometres northeast of Iqaluit, the capital of the Nunavut territory. To date, 74 kimberlites have been identified on the property<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThe mineral composition of other portions of the North Atlantic craton is so unique there was no mistaking it,\u201d geologist Maya Kopylova said in a media statement. \u201cIt was easy to tie the pieces together. Adjacent ancient cratons in Northern Canada\u2014in Northern Quebec, Northern Ontario and in Nunavut\u2014have completely different mineralogies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kopylova, who is the lead author of a <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/petrology\/advance-article-abstract\/doi\/10.1093\/petrology\/egz061\/5697922?redirectedFrom=fulltext\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"paper (opens in a new tab)\">paper<\/a> that outlines these findings, explained that cratons are billion-year-old, stable fragments of continental crust \u2014continental nuclei that anchor and gather other continental blocks around them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Some of these nuclei are still present at the centre of existing continental plates like the North American plate, but other ancient continents have split into smaller fragments and been re-arranged by a long history of plate movements.<\/p>\n<p>The newly identified fragment covers the diamond-bearing Chidliak kimberlite province in southern Baffin Island. It adds roughly 10%\u00a0 to the known expanse of the North Atlantic craton.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With these samples, we\u2019re able to reconstruct the shapes of ancient continents based on deeper, mantle rocks,\u201d Kopylova said. \u201cWe can now understand and map not only the uppermost skinny layer of Earth that makes up 1% of the planet\u2019s volume, but our knowledge is literally and symbolically deeper. We can put together 200-kilometre deep fragments and contrast them based on the details of the deep mineralogy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In exchange for the samples, the UBC research team provided De Beers with information about the deep diamondiferous mantle that is central to mapping the part of the craton with the higher changes to support a successful diamond mine.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers working with drill cores samples provided by the miner identified a mineral signature that matched other portions of the North Atlantic craton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[624,369],"tags":[43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172993"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1172993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1172994,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172993\/revisions\/1172994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1172993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1172993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1172993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}