Mantle Mapper™

A powerful tool for early stage evaluation of kimberlites

Mantle Mapper™ is a procedure developed by Mineral Services to quantitatively analyse the abundance and composition of key mantle-derived minerals (indicator minerals) in kimberlite. This allows quick, cost-effective and reliable evaluation of the diamond potential of the host body as well as an assessment of the nature and general prospectivity of the mantle sampled. Rigorous and consistent sample processing, indicator mineral recovery and analytical procedures are employed to ensure the data obtained are representative, quantitative and reproducible (see attached description of procedure).
The method was developed in the early 1990s and has been consistently applied in numerous projects across four continents. It has proved highly successful, both to prioritise kimberlites for further evaluation work and to assess the overall prospectivity of the regions in which they occur.

Mantle Mapper™ processing of samples is offered at the Mineral Services Laboratories in Cape Town and in Vancouver. The Cape Town laboratory has been ISO 17025 accredited since 2004 for the extraction and compositional analysis of kimberlitic indicator minerals. The Vancouver laboratory follows the same standards and procedures. 

Some of the key advantages of using Mantle Mapper™ include:

•   It is a robust means of qualitatively determining the diamond potential of individual kimberlites and, in conjunction with petrographic and microdiamond data, providing a basis for decisions on whether more costly additional evaluation work is justified;
•   It offers a standardised method, consistently applied, and therefore a reliable basis for comparison and prioritisation of different kimberlites (particularly within specific kimberlite clusters or fields) and of different units within a single kimberlite body;
•   Mantle Mapper™ results provide a means of assessing the prospectivity of the region in which the kimberlite occurs. A low diamond content/ potential in a particular kimberlite does not necessarily rule out the presence of diamondiferous bodies in the area in which it occurs. In many cases, however, the low diamond content of a kimberlite reflects regional factors that significantly limit the potential for other diamondiferous bodies nearby. These factors are typically evident in the Mantle Mapper™ results;
•  Because indicator minerals are significantly more abundant than diamond in most kimberlites, the sample size required to generate statistically reliable data is considerably smaller than that required for direct analysis of diamond content;
•   It therefore provides a very important backup to microdiamond analysis, which can yield misleading results due to factors including limited sample size, uncertainty regarding the relationship between micro and macro diamonds, and coarse stone-size distributions that are not adequately tested by the relatively small samples typically treated for microdiamonds.

 Mantle Mapper™ - Sample Processing and Analysis Flowsheet