Midlands Minerals holds a 75% interest in the Itilima Gold and Diamond Project, which consists of four contiguous licences totalling 65 square kilometres in the Lake Victoria Goldfields in Tanzania. Midlands interest is through its subsidiary company in Tanzania – the Itilima Mining Company Limited.
The Itilima Property is located just 25 kilometres south of Petra Diamonds' (formerly De Beers) Williamson Diamond Mine at Mwadui in the Shinyanga kimberlite field in northern Tanzania. Mwadui is the largest mined kimberlite in the world, which has been mined continuously since its discovery in 1940 and has produced in excess of 17 million carats of high quality diamonds, including rare pink diamonds.
Project Geology - Gold
The Company's exploration program to date has focused on geochemistry followed by 1,345 metres of RC drilling in 2004 and 2,070 metres of diamond core drilling which was conducted in the last quarter of 2006. Work done to date has confirmed a number of gold-bearing structures and shear zones including the previously known Itilima Shear Zone ("ISZ") and the Chanya Shear Zone ("CSZ"). There is now a 3 kilometre diorite surrounded by soil anomalies and a 10 kilometre strike length NW-SE structure.
In 2005, the Company conducted an extensive Mobile Metal Ion ("MMI") soil geochemistry program to confirm previous MMI results prior to further drilling. The results of the MMI geochemistry program confirmed repeatability and continuity of orientation of previously detected anomalous trends. One of the anomalous trends extends the strike direction of the Itilima artisanal mining site in both directions. Two other parallel trends indicate potential for parallel gold-bearing horizons under transport overburden.
The Company plans to continue exploration activities based on results from current exploration, subject to financing.
Project Geology - Gold
Two kimberlites (K1 and K2) have already been discovered on the property. The kimberlites have been drilled and sampled and have produced micro-diamonds, as well as suites of kimberlite indicator minerals. These minerals, particularly the garnets, have compositions similar to those from the Mwadui and other kimberlites in the Shinyanga kimberlite field.
Derivation of these grains from the diamond stability field has been demonstrated. This provides further evidence that diamondiferous mantle underlies the property, and therefore the potential for more diamond-bearing kimberlites is high.
Airborne and ground-based geophysical surveys have previously identified six Priority 1 magnetic targets on the property. Mobile metal ion (MMI) geochemistry surveys conducted over other Priority 2 and 3 magnetic targets have found that some possess kimberlite-distinctive combinations of Nb, Ti, Y, and Co signatures, that has led to the upgrading of a further 10 targets to Priority 1 status. There is a high likelihood that all of these 16 anomalies will be kimberlites. These anomalies should be drilled for diamond and kimberlite indicator mineral analysis to confirm the kimberlitic character of the anomalies and permit an assessment of their diamond potential.