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 Post subject: Canadian diamond mines
PostPosted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 12:04 pm 
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I was channel surfing the other night and came across the Science channel. They were doing a program on Canadian diamond mining. Maybe some of you seen it as well. Very interesting as they described the operation's from exploration to core and bulk sampling right into site preparation and the actual mining operation.

As I came across this channel unprepared, I didn't take note's or record it. So I'll relate a few thing's as best as memory serve's. This is not gospel but to the best of my recollection.

Many of the kimberlite pipe's being discovered are submerged under lake's. The econmically workable one's like the Ekati have to be completely dammed and the water pumped out before the mine can be worked and excavated. As you can imagine this is an enormous undertaking which require's thousand's of ton's of mining equipment, construction and housing equipment, aggregate's for dam building, food and equipment for worker's, security installation's and so forth.

Most of this equipment has to be brought in during the coldest month's when the surrounding lake's and standing water are frozen hard enough to withstand the constant caravan of large truck's that bring's this equipment in. It has to be well planned and complete to assure everything is on site before the ice become's unsafe for travel. Once the lake area to be mined has been dammed and pumped they may have to install a piping fence around the perimeter which is basicly large metal pipe's driven into the ground and filled with a coolant such as liquid nitrogen to keep the ground frozen around the mine area to prevent thawing ice and rising water table's from invading the mine. At that point typical mining procedure's commense.

The program noted that 100 Armenian diamond cutter's were brought in to fashion a portion's of the mine's yeild and to train local resident apprentice's in the art of diamond cutting. I believe they said it was a three year apprenticeship before the trainee's are allowed to cut marketable diamond's.

Another interesting point, again by memory, is they said appoximately 30% of the rough goes to DeBeer's another 55 to 60% elsewhere (didn't specify) and about 15% remain's inhouse and is vertically integrated.

There was much more in the program but the above part's kind of stuck in my mind and are as accurate as I can remember.
If anyone has anything to add or correct anything that I remembered incorrectly, please feel free to do so.


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 12:25 am 
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The government of the Northwest Territories keeps track of a considerable amount of information on the diamond industry and makes it available on their website in html and pdf format:

http://www.iti.gov.nt.ca/diamond/diamond_facts2005.htm

The usually keep the statistics reasonably up-to-date.

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Many of the kimberlite pipe's being discovered are submerged under lake's. The econmically workable one's like the Ekati have to be completely dammed and the water pumped out before the mine can be worked and excavated. As you can imagine this is an enormous undertaking which require's thousand's of ton's of mining equipment, construction and housing equipment, aggregate's for dam building, food and equipment for worker's, security installation's and so forth.


It is an enormous undertaking. I worked for one of the local port authorities awhile back and we did a lot of dredging. The contractor that did most of the dredging also did the dredging for some of the mines in the NWT. The mines are north of Yellowknife, the company is in Vancouver. Can you imagine trucking in equipment and a dredge over 1400 miles of road?


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:18 am 
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Ar's, thank you for the excellent link on the Canadian diamond mining. I liberated a portion of content from that website that better describe's the site preparation's that I was refering to in my post.

http://www.diavik.ca/News/2005/A418%20m ... 20item.PDF


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 Post subject: Mining Ice
PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 3:05 am 
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I'd just like to add that the show JB most likely saw was "Mining Ice", an episode of the Canadian engineering program Frontiers of Construction. This episode originally aired in 2002 on Discovery Canada; it may have been repackaged and/or rebranded for the US market, however.

Gems & Gemology also had an excellent overview of Canadian diamond production in their Fall 2002 issue:
  • Kjarsgaard, B.A. and Levinson, A. A. (2002). Diamonds in Canada. Gems & Gemology, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 208–238.

Great link, ars!


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