Hi lulian,
Not exactly a miracle to achieve god results if we target just the minerals and not the diamonds itself (based on several tesis we can found on Internet). Unfortunetly I lack of knowledge on Geology/Geoscience for implementing such technics.
Yes, for locating diamonds, the process could be expensive (also time consuming as you state) but do not believe that's more expensive than the actual methods applied which requires more onsite intervention (aeromagnetic data collection for instance). Usually we use "artisanal miners", which is cheaper. We have a rule here... if there are "illegal artisanal miners" on the target area, there are diamonds there. That's why we mainlly target alluvial diamond sources (not the kimberlite itself). On this region, at least 1 out of 10 people is an illegal artisanal miner, or at least is supporting a small group of artisanal miners.
I don't realy need to accurately located those alluvial diamond sources (I know what's behind the process). What I really need is to locate areas where the minerals related to diamond are present (I don't even know what those minerals are for sure) and I do believe to be easier to locate, other than the diamonds itself and since our region is very rich on diamonds presence, that's a good chance to find diamonds on those areas.
"Keep in mind that perhaps only one of ten kimberlites bodies is "pregnant" with diamonds ...". Yes. I am care about this and also know that depending on the area where the targets are located, this relation increases. Just to have an idea, one of the biggest open sky mining in the world operating is located here (I think it's the fourth) and when the project started, they found 17 kimberlites and gess what... all of them were "pregnant". The project is named Catoca.
Actually I am looking for remote sensing professionals that might be interested on the project I have.
Regards
Paulo