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Project Status: On Hold
Exploration Stage: Preliminary Exploration
Location: Between Delareyville and Bloemhof
Project Areas: Delareyville area and Bloemhof area
Licence Area: 444.53 km²

The Bloemhof Project comprises four groups of farms situated in the North West Province of South Africa between Delareyville and Bloemhof and have been grouped into two areas, namely:
• Delareyville Area, comprising the Bergspruit and Wolmaransstad West Blocks; and
• Bloemhof Area, comprising the Palmietfontein North and Zoutpan North Blocks

History
Diamond diggers first located the diamondiferous alluvial gravels of the Vaal River in the vicinity of Christiana and Bloemhof in the mid 1880’s, and from there, progressively extended their prospecting activities north and north-eastward. By 1912, the rich diggings on Mooifontein and London, south of Schweizer Reneke, had been discovered, as had the equally rich deposits to the southwest of Wolmaransstad.

The bulk of the production from the field took place in the 1920’s, although digging activities on a smaller scale have been more or less continuous since then. Total production of 2,117,380cts has been recorded from 226 farms in the diamond-field, up to the end of 1989, with 12 of the farms having recorded over 50,000cts each.

Local Geology
Ventersdorp lavas or Karoo Shale broadly underlies the diamond fields of the area. The surface on which the gravels are deposited is crudely planar, with a shallow southwesterly dipping slope. The planar surface of the lavas generally exhibits a weathering pattern similar to that of the dolomites, with gullies and potholes eroded into structural trends and intersections, but, in contrast to the dolomite, these surfaces are smoothly rounded. The topographic lows are the trap sites for the alluvial deposits.

The area was the subject of a doctoral thesis by T. R. Marshall, which concentrated mainly on palaeo-geomorphology and structural controls on the fossilised and present drainage systems. The table below outlines the types of gravels described in the thesis.

NAME

DESCRIPTION OF GRAVELS

Source: TR Marchall (1990)

Location
The Delareyville Area lies approximately 8km south of Delareyville and 40km northwest of the town of Wolmaransstad and is loosely broken into three different blocks.

The Bergspruit Block comprises seven farms or portions thereof, including Harts River diamant 363 IO, Goedgevonden 366 IO, Brodricks Valley 386 IO, Bossieslaagte 369 IO, Simonsvallei 382 IO, Vlakpan 381 IO and Oshoek 367 IO.

The Wolmaransstad West Block lies just west of the town of Wolmaransstad. It comprises six farms or portions thereof, including Wolmaransstad 184 HO, De Put 180 HO, Tweeloop 160 HO, Weltevreden 161 HO, Uitkyk 156 HO and Bosrand 158 HO.

Access and Infrastructure
Access to the prospect area is via the main R47 tarmac road which runs between the towns of Delareyville and Vryburg, or two secondary roads, the 506 and the 507, which run from Delareyville to Schweizer-Reneke and Ottosdal respectively. The Harts River runs between the Migdol and Bergspruit Blocks.

Access to the properties is via good secondary roads that branch off the main N12 Highway which runs between Johannesburg and Kimberly. Only one annual stream occurs on any one of the farms and, as the area is semi-arid, water would need to be sourced from boreholes if mining were to commence.

Recent Exploration
Apart from available data compilation and target generation, limited RC drilling has been completed to identify the extent of the gravel runs.

Future Exploration
The Bloemhof project has been put on hold for the foreseeable future until an improvement in the diamond market is apparent and priorities change.

Management & Staff
No staff are currently deployed specifically on the Bloemhof project.