Botswana Diamonds discovers seven significant kimberlite anomalies
Botswana Diamonds
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16:55 11/12/24
Botswana Diamonds announced the discovery of seven significant kimberlite anomalies in Botswana on Thursday, marking a major development in its exploration efforts.
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The AIM-traded firm said the findings resulted from an advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-driven prospectivity programme, leveraging the company’s extensive proprietary database alongside open-source geological data.
Among the newly-identified targets, the board said one was of particular interest due to its unique geological characteristics.
The AI analysis was conducted using Planetary AI’s 'Xplore' mineral prospectivity platform, which used over 375,000 kilometres of airborne geophysical data, as well as geochemistry, satellite imagery, and structural data, spanning decades of exploration work in Botswana.
A combination of AI models was applied to process, enrich, and analyze the data, which was then compared against proprietary deposit models to pinpoint prospective sites.
In addition to kimberlite targets, the AI analysis revealed several compelling polymetallic targets in areas not currently under licence.
The board said the targets spanned a range of elements, including gold, copper, silver, nickel, zinc, and platinum group metals.
Work was ongoing to assess these new opportunities, which include four main deposit types and eleven sub-types.
“The identification of seven, previously unreported, anomalies is a major achievement,” said chairman John Teeling.
“To discover them in a few short months is a major step forward in mineral exploration.
“Using AI techniques and powerful computing, almost 400,000 kilometres of airborne geophysical and other exploration data has been analysed and evaluated. It is astounding.”
Teeling said Botswana Diamonds was “extremely fortunate” to have “such a vast treasure trove” of decades of diamond exploration data in Botswana.
“I would like to highlight one anomaly which has a signature that outranks all of the others and is of particular interest to the company.
“We are long term believers in the diamond prospectivity of Botswana and these results reinforce the belief.
“We believe more diamond mines will be discovered in Botswana.”
At 0830 GMT, shares in Botswana Diamonds were flat at 0.2p.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.