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Snowfield Development Corp. ("Snowfield") is pleased to announce that all site preparation, including mining plan approvals and safety inspections, have been completed and blasting has commenced on the ramp access to undertake a 500 tonne bulk sample of the diamondiferous Mud Lake Kimberlite. Part of this process entailed the construction of a 1.4 km gravel all-weather access road from Great Slave Lake to the bulk sample site.
The Mud Lake Kimberlite discovery consists of a multiple-layer sill structure with varying kimberlite thicknesses of up to 10 meters. At the site of the bulk sample the kimberlite is overlain by a granite cap to a depth of approximately 12 meters. The granite is being removed to allow a decline to be driven at a grade of approximately 15% to access the kimberlite body. In excess of 100,000 cubic meters of material will be excavated.
The up to 500 tonnes of kimberlite to be extracted for sampling will be crushed and bagged on site for onward shipment to the De Beers Canada Exploration ("De Beers") Dense Media Separation Plant in Grand Prairie Alberta. As previously announced (NR05-10) Snowfield has accepted an offer from De Beers to process this bulk sample at no cost to Snowfield and with no obligation from Snowfield.
After processing, it is management's intention to split the concentrate into three smaller batches and utilize two laboratories in Canada and the De Beers Laboratory in Johannesburg, S.A. for diamond recovery. This will provide enhanced quality control for the diamond recovery process.
Snowfield has successfully navigated a rigorous permitting environment to bring this project to the bulk sample stage. The Mud Lake kimberlite is the third diamondiferous kimberlite to be discovered in the Drybones Bay area of the South Slave Craton and is the first to be successfully permitted for bulk sampling.
Located 55km southeast of Yellowknife, NWT, the Mud Lake Kimberlite, was discovered by Snowfield in 2003 and has subsequently proved to be diamondiferous (NR06-04) and (NR 06-31) with a significant number of macro diamonds recovered through caustic fusion analysis.
Snowfield is confident that the Ticho Diamond Project will host further kimberlite discoveries and further exploration drilling is scheduled for the fall of 2006.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
"Robert T. Paterson"
President
SNOWFIELD DEVELOPMENT CORP.
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