The Mir kimberlite pipe is on the way from the largest diamond quarry to the first underground city under the dome. How are diamonds mined?

Among the amazing natural phenomena we can certainly include holes that periodically open up in different places on the globe.

1.Kimberlite pipe "Mir" (Mir diamond pipe), Yakutia.

The Mir kimberlite pipe is a quarry located in the city of Mirny, Yakutia. The quarry has a depth of 525 m and a diameter of 1.2 km, and is one of the largest quarries in the world. Mining of diamond-bearing kimberlite ore ceased in June 2001. Currently, an underground mine of the same name is being built on board the quarry to develop the remaining sub-quarry reserves, the extraction of which by open-pit mining is unprofitable.

The world's largest diamond quarry is amazing.

2.Kimberlite pipe "Big Hole", South Africa.

The Big Hole is a huge inactive diamond mine in the city of Kimberley (South Africa). It is believed that this is the largest quarry developed by people without the use of technology. Currently it is the main attraction of the city of Kimberley.

From 1866 to 1914, approximately 50,000 miners dug the mine using picks and shovels, producing 2,722 tons of diamonds (14.5 million carats). During the development of the quarry, 22.5 million tons of soil were extracted. It was here that such famous diamonds as "De Beers" (428.5 carats), bluish-white "Porter-Rhodes" (150 carats), orange-yellow " Tiffany" (128.5 carats). Currently, this diamond deposit has been exhausted. The area of ​​the “Big Hole” is 17 hectares. Its diameter is 1.6 km. The hole was dug to a depth of 240 meters, but was then filled with waste rock to a depth of 215 meters, currently the bottom of the hole is filled with water, its depth is 40 meters.

At the site of the mine previously (about 70 - 130 million years ago) there was a volcanic crater. Almost a hundred years ago - in 1914, development in the “Big Hole” was stopped, but the gaping crater of the pipe remains to this day and now serves only as a bait for tourists, serving as a museum. And... it starts to create problems. In particular, there was a serious danger of collapse not only of its edges, but also of the roads built in its immediate vicinity. South African road services have long banned the passage of heavy freight vehicles in these places, and now they strongly recommend that all other drivers avoid driving along Bultfontein Road in the Big Hole area. The authorities are going to completely block the dangerous section of the road. And the world's largest diamond company, De Beers, which owned this mine since 1888, did not find anything better than to get rid of it by putting it up for sale.

3. Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah.

The largest active open-pit mine in the world, copper mining began in 1863 and is still ongoing. About a kilometer deep and three and a half kilometers wide.

It is the world's largest anthropogenic formation (excavated by humans). It is a mine whose development is carried out using an open pit method.

As of 2008, it measures 0.75 miles (1.2 km) deep, 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and covers an area of ​​1,900 acres (7.7 sq. km).

The ore was first discovered in 1850, and quarrying began in 1863, which continues to this day.

Currently, the quarry employs 1,400 people who extract 450,000 tons (408 thousand tons) of rock daily. The ore is loaded into 64 large dump trucks, which are capable of transporting 231 tons of ore, these trucks cost about $3 million each.

4. Diavik Quarry, Canada. Diamonds are mined.

The Canadian Diavik quarry is perhaps one of the youngest (in terms of development) diamond kimberlite pipes. It was first explored only in 1992, the infrastructure was created by 2001, and diamond mining began in January 2003. The mine is expected to last from 16 to 22 years.
The place where it emerges from the surface of the earth is unique in itself. Firstly, this is not one, but three pipes formed on the island of Las de Gras, approximately 220 km south of the Arctic Circle, off the coast of Canada. Since the hole is huge, and the island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is small, only 20 km²

and in a short time, the Diavik diamond mine became one of the most important components of the Canadian economy. Up to 8 million carats (1,600 kg) of diamonds are mined from this deposit per year. An airfield was built on one of its neighboring islands, capable of receiving even huge Boeings. In June 2007, a consortium of seven mining companies announced their intention to sponsor environmental studies and begin construction of a major port on Canada's North Shore to accommodate cargo ships of up to 25,000 tons, as well as a 211 km access road that would connect the port to the consortium's plants. . This means that the hole in the ocean will grow and deepen.

5. Great Blue Hole, Belize.

The world-famous Great Blue Hole is the main attraction of picturesque, ecologically perfectly clean Belize (formerly British Honduras) - a state in Central America, on the Yucatan Peninsula. No, this time it is not a kimberlite pipe. It is not diamonds that are “mined” from it, but tourists - diving enthusiasts from all over the world, thanks to which it feeds the country no worse than a diamond pipe. Probably, it would be better to call it not “Blue Hole”, but “Blue Dream”, since this can only be seen in dreams or in a dream. This is a true masterpiece, a miracle of nature - a perfectly round, twilight blue spot in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, surrounded by a lace shirtfront of the Lighthouse Reef.

View from space!

Width 400 meters, depth 145 - 160 meters.

It’s like they’re swimming over an abyss...

6. Drainage hole in the reservoir of the Monticello Dam.

A large man-made hole is located in Northern California, USA. But this is not just a hole. The drainage hole in the Monticello Dam reservoir is the largest spillway in the world! It was built about 55 years ago. This funnel-shaped exit is simply irreplaceable here. It allows you to quickly discharge excess water from the tank when its level exceeds the permissible limit. A kind of safety valve.

Visually, the funnel looks like a giant concrete pipe. It is capable of passing through itself as much as 1370 cubic meters per second. m of water! The depth of this hole is about 21 m. From top to bottom it has the shape of a cone, the diameter of which at the top reaches almost 22 m, and at the bottom it narrows to 9 m and comes out on the other side of the dam, removing excess water when the reservoir overflows. The distance from the pipe to the exit point, which is located slightly to the south, is approximately 700 feet (about 200 m).

7. Karst sinkhole in Guatemala.

A giant funnel with a depth of 150 and a diameter of 20 meters. Caused by groundwater and rain. During the formation of the sinkhole, several people died and a dozen houses were destroyed. According to local residents, from about the beginning of February, soil movements were felt in the area of ​​the future tragedy, and a muffled rumble was heard from underground.

Once the world's largest diamond quarry, the Mir kimberlite pipe was created by human hands in the kingdom of permafrost at the address: the city of Mirny, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The flight of aircraft over the man-made crater is strictly prohibited: a giant funnel with a diameter of 1,200 meters and a depth of 525 meters, initiating downward air currents, sucks in helicopters.

The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is a fantastically rich geological province. It has no analogues not only in Russia, but throughout the world. All this causes the undisguised envy of our foreign friends and partners. “It is unfair that the Lord God has rewarded a land where winter temperatures reach minus 70 degrees with such riches!” – statesmen and pundits from near and far abroad very often assert.+

In Yakut folklore there is a legend that, having decided to fairly divide precious materials and stones throughout the Earth, God flew over Yakutia in the winter cold and froze his hands, as a result of which gold and diamonds were scattered from an untied bag of precious stones across the mountains, river valleys and tundra , silver and platinum, and many other noble minerals.+

But for a long time, the diamond deposits that Yakutia is so rich in remained inaccessible. Until recently, no human had ever set foot on these lands, where permafrost reigns. And this is not surprising: in terms of the absolute value of the minimum temperature, Yakutia has no equal regions in the entire Northern Hemisphere.+

Diamonds and “Kuzka’s Mother”

The intensive search for diamonds in Yakutia began with the Cold War. At that time, the need for strategic raw materials used in the defense industry increased sharply in the Soviet Union. To purchase it abroad, the country needed funds that could be obtained from the sale of precious stones that had already become famous on the world market.+

However, the insignificant deposits of precious stone in the Urals could not satisfy the demands of the Soviet government for the necessary funds. At the same time, venerable Soviet scientists stubbornly asserted: there are signs indicating the presence of kimberlite pipes in the Yakut land.+

The formation of a kimberlite pipe occurs during a volcanic eruption, when gases from the bowels of the earth burst out through the earth's crust. The shape of such a tube resembles a funnel or glass. A volcanic explosion removes kimberlite rock, sometimes containing diamonds, from the bowels of the Earth. The breed is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where an 85-carat (16.7 gram) diamond was found in 1871, sparking the Diamond Rush.+

Numerous geological expeditions were sent to Yakutia with only one goal: to find a kimberlite pipe of industrial importance.+

In the fall of 1948, a group of geologists led by G. Fanstein began prospecting work on the Chona and Vilyui rivers, and on August 7, 1949, they found the first diamond on a sand spit called Sokolina, and more than 20 more crystals and identified a diamond-bearing placer here. As a result of prospecting work in 1950-1953, several diamond-bearing placers were discovered in Yakutia.+

All this indicated that there are kimberlite pipes in Yakutia. And finally, several years of geological exploration were crowned with success. On August 21 of the following year, 1954, geologist Larisa Popugaeva and worker Fyodor Belikov discovered the first kimberlite pipe in the USSR and named it “Zarnitsa”. But this deposit was poorly suited for industrial purposes.+

On June 13, 1955, geologists of the expedition of Yu.I. Khabardin and E.N. Elagina, who were looking for a kimberlite pipe in Yakutia, saw a tall larch, the roots of which were exposed by a landslide. The fox dug a deep hole under it. Based on the characteristic bluish color of the soil scattered by the fox, geologists realized that it was kimberlite. Such is the legend.+

In fact, the search engines were guided by a forecast map compiled by geologists N.A. Amkinna and N.V. Kind.+

The famous radiogram they transmitted to the leadership of the expedition about the discovery of kimberlite was coded: “We lit the pipe of peace, the tobacco is excellent. Avdeenko, Elagina, Khabardin.” As usual, in those days the secretary of the party organization was the first to sign the radiogram.+

The diamond deposit was a discovery of extreme importance. The “snuff” in the pipe really turned out to be quite good: more than 80% of all diamonds mined in this mine weighed 5 carats each (1 gram). Potentially, the development of the diamond industry should have doubled the economic potential of the Soviet Union.+

All this allowed Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev not only to loudly knock his shoes on the UN podium, but also to make a strategic statement that threw all the adversaries of the Soviet Union into a cold sweat: “It’s time for the aggressor-capitalists to show “Kuzka’s mother”; soon our Motherland will take a leading position in the international foreign exchange market, having developed new diamond deposits in Yakutia for the speedy creation of the material and technical base of communism in the USSR.”+

The Mir kimberlite pipe is the richest diamond deposit in the world

The beginning of the industrial development of diamonds dates back to 1957. It is clear that the field had to be developed in extremely difficult climatic conditions, and in order to break deep into the permafrost, the ground had to be blasted using dynamite.+

However, already in 1960, the annual diamond production was 2 kilograms, and a fifth of them were of jewelry quality.+

After proper cutting, diamonds turned into amazingly beautiful diamonds that were used to create jewelry. +

Soviet citizens planning to get married could afford to buy exquisite diamond engagement rings, in which diamonds were mined in the Yakut Mir kimberlite pipe.+

The remaining 80% of mined diamonds are used for industrial purposes, since according to the Mohs scale of reference minerals of hardness it is the hardest mineral in the world, with the highest thermal conductivity, dispersion and refraction.+

The largest quarry in terms of diamond production

Address: Russia, Yakutia, Mirny
Opened: 1955
Start of production: 1957
End of open pit mining: 2001
Depth: 525 m
Diameter: 1.2 km
Owner: CJSC AK ALROSA (Almazy Russia-Sakha)+

As befits any miracle, there are legends about the Mir diamond mine. They say that when you are at the bottom, you feel dizzy, but when you go up, you experience euphoria. Looking like a bottomless abyss, the mine beckons and hypnotizes. Some people dream of jumping to the bottom of a quarry with a parachute.+

One can only be amazed at how much effort has gone into developing the quarry. Take, for example, the problem of aggressive waters saturated with methane, hydrogen sulfide and oil, which arrive at a speed of 3,500 cubic meters per day. So, if a unique grouting curtain had not been created, the quarry would inevitably have been flooded.+

Between 1957 and 2001, the Mir quarry produced $17 billion worth of diamonds. Over the years, the quarry expanded so much that trucks had to travel 8 kilometers along a spiral road from the bottom to the surface.+

The Russian company ALROSA, which owns the Mir quarry, stopped open-pit mining of ore in 2001, as this method had become dangerous and ineffective.+

Scientists have found that diamonds lie at a depth of more than 1 kilometer, and at such a depth it is not a quarry that is suitable for mining, but an underground mine, which produced one million tons of ore per year at its design capacity already in 2012. In total, the development of the field is planned for another 34 years.+

It is necessary to make good use of the mothballed quarry

If a spent quarry is left to the elements, it will not only be useless, but over time it can also become dangerous. High walls pose the threat of landslides, and one day the quarry may swallow the adjacent, including built-up, areas.+

The idea of ​​building a completely autonomous city in the Mir diamond mine seems to be the ultimate utopian dream, but the authors of this concept - employees of the Alice architectural bureau - cannot be called empty dreamers. The head of the bureau, Nikolai Lyutomsky, is an experienced architect who started at Mosproekt-1. The idea was suggested by MArchI student Elena Tsyrenova, a native of the city of Mirny. She proposed to her supervisor N. Lyutomsky the topic of her diploma: “A tourist hotel near the edge of the Mir diamond quarry.”+

And although the cyclopean hole in the ground in the middle of the permafrost really attracts the attention of tourists, the manager advised Elena, together with the architects of AB Elis, to participate in the development of a real underground city.+

Scientists are thinking about an eco-city project in a now empty huge pit

Due to the landslide hazard of the slopes of the existing quarry, the project will require cutting off the soil to form a pit in the shape of an inverted truncated cone with a base diameter of about 250 m. When developing the pit, a soil mass will be freed up, which will be used to partially backfill the quarry to a level above the groundwater level . Groundwater is found in the quarry in the depth range from 280−320 to 426−525 m from the surface. To avoid flooding of the pit and underground structures, it will be necessary to erect anti-seepage curtains along the perimeter of the bottom of the pit in the form of a “wall in the ground.”+

The head of the Moscow architectural bureau, Nikolai Lyutomsky, talks about his plans: “The main part of the project is a huge concrete structure, which will become a kind of “plug” for the former quarry and will burst it from the inside. The pit will be covered on top with a translucent dome on which solar panels will be installed. The climate in Yakutia is harsh, but there are many clear days there and the batteries will be able to generate about 200 MW of electricity, which should more than meet the needs of the future city. In addition, you can use the heat of the Earth. +

In winter, in Mirny the air cools to -60°C, but at a depth below 150 meters (that is, below permafrost), the ground temperature is positive, which adds energy efficiency to the project.+

The space of the city is proposed to be divided into three tiers: the lower one - for growing agricultural products (the so-called vertical farm), the middle one - a forest park zone that purifies the air, and the upper one for the permanent residence of people, which has a residential function and serves to house administrative and socio-cultural buildings and structures.+

The total area of ​​the city will be 3 million square meters, and up to 10,000 people will be able to live here - tourists, service personnel and farm workers.”+

The Mir diamond quarry was included in the list of candidates for the “Seven Wonders of Russia” competition, organized with the participation of the Izvestia newspaper, the Rossiya TV channel and the Mayak radio station. He was not awarded the title of winner, but this does not detract from his significance in the history of Russia and his enormous contribution to the achievements of our country.+

Boris Skupov

Eagle Stone

Abu-Reyhan Biruni, who explored the world a thousand years ago and became famous throughout the centuries, speaking about gems, wrote: “A diamond is called an eagle stone, but a person teaches an eagle to wear diamonds. Having found a nest in the mountains, stone collectors cover it with glass. The eagle, unable to push aside the obstacles, is forced to bring diamonds and throw them from a height into the nest - otherwise he cannot overcome the glass. Having collected the stones brought by the bird, the people remove the glass, and the eagle calms down. After some time, the nest is covered with glass again, and the eagle immediately begins to carry diamonds to remove the barrier between him and the chicks...”

There is not even a hint of truth in this legend. Scree diamonds rarely have sharp edges capable of cutting glass. Despite its hardness, diamond is not strong enough to survive a fall from a great height without harm. And most importantly: the legend does not answer the question, where does the eagle get diamonds? After all, not every mountain contains scatterings of precious stones...

Where do diamonds come from?

The first diamonds were mined from river deposits. By eroding the original deposits of semi-precious stone, rivers are capable of carrying washed away debris thousands of kilometers from their homeland. Diamond crystals, having traveled such a long distance, become rounded: the edges are smoothed out, the edges are chipped. However, the jewelry quality of such stones is always high: defective crystals are simply destroyed under the influence of external forces.

In an effort to get to the natural deposits of the luminiferous mineral, people have undertaken real excavations more than once or twice in search of diamond veins. However, shoveling soil from diamond-bearing river sediments yielded modest carats per cubic meter of waste rock, and did not help in any way answer the question: where do diamonds come from?

Yellow Diamonds of the Orange River

In 1866, large diamonds were found on the banks of the Orange River, flowing in southern Africa. The finds were so encouraging to the land owners that they undertook significant geological exploration efforts. The research yielded a result: a compact location of diamonds was discovered!

Soon the field was seething with life. Tens of thousands of amateur miners dug a quarry, reseeded the soil, and handed over the found crystals to buyers. The revival of business activity attracted the attention of the authorities: in 1873, the Earl of Kimberley declared the diamond-bearing lands the property of the British crown, and bestowed his name on the mining village.

Rocks that contained diamonds were called kimberlite, and geological formations that gave the world deposits of sparkling natural stone were called kimberlite pipes.

Glass shaped

A kimberlite pipe is a well going deep, the upper part of which resembles an expanding bell, and the lower part is a narrow pipe. In shape, this formation is surprisingly similar to an ordinary wine glass - however, with a disproportionately long stem.

Kimberlite, the rock that fills this giant well, consists of varying-scale fragments of locally occurring minerals, unevenly distributed in the highly alkaline environment raised from the deep bowels of the planet.

Olivine, the transparent variety of which is called chrysotile and is a gemstone, is the most voluminous component of kimberlite. Fiery red garnets and layered phlogopites are crystals that are necessarily present in kimberlite massifs.

The kimberlite itself is dark, almost black, and has a pronounced blue or green tint. The crystals of transparent carbon contained in it have a regular diamond-shaped shape and look fresh and new - which sharply contradicts the theories of the genesis of diamonds that were established in the last century...

Where does the kimberlite pipe lead?

Modern science does not have accurate information about the nature of kimberlite pipes. Ignorance, however, does not prevent us from searching for them (more than 1,500 geological formations of the vertical tubular type are currently known) and developing them. No more than 10% of the “wells” that go into the depths contain crystallized carbon in their rocks. Nevertheless, from 20 to 25 tons of diamonds are mined by humanity every year!

Until recently, hypotheses reigned about the formation of a precious mineral at depths from 150 to 600 kilometers. Theoretically, it is there that the temperature and pressure correspond to the parameters of carbon crystallization. However, these theories have little evidence, but their refutations are significant.

Mysteries of kimberlites

Unlike currently active volcanoes, kimberlite pipes are located where it is most difficult for hot, liquefied and gaseous substances in the mantle to break through. Kimberlites penetrate a huge thickness of platforms of the earth's crust and go even lower, to depths of up to one and a half hundred kilometers!

Volcanoes “let off steam” where it is easiest for molten rocks to make their way up from the depths: in the transition zones around continental plates, the oceanic crust is both thin (about ten kilometers) and cracked. How does the liquid substance of the mantle manage to break through the most durable layers of the earth's crust and form a kimberlite pipe?

On all continents of the Earth, kimberlite pipes “pierce” - like a nail on a board - the strongest crystalline shields - and often freeze before reaching the surface of several hundred or even tens of meters of loose sedimentary rocks. Why? There is no clear answer.

When talking about kimberlite pipes, geologists use the concept of a volumetric trace of an explosive process. Meanwhile, an explosion - that is, an avalanche-like rapid release of energy - gives completely different consequences. The explosion chamber formed in rocks tends to be spherical - but not a single kimberlite pipe has even a relative similarity to spheroids. This means that the perforation of the earth’s crust during the formation of the kimberlite pipe did not have an explosive nature? How did it go?

Another problem in understanding the nature of the formation of these gigantic wells is associated with the shape of the rock fragments that make up kimberlite. Crystals of apatite, pyrope, zircon, ilmenite, often found in kimberlites, are always round - rounded like sea pebbles. In this case, no traces of melting of crystalline substances (except in the thin surface layer of the stone) are found. This means that the cutting off of sharp corners and grinding of edges occurred during the movement of the kimberlite mass.
Why then do diamond crystals, which, according to theory, rise from hundreds of kilometers deep, have no traces of the action of destructive forces? The hardness of the mineral prevents the appearance of signs of abrasive wear, but hardness is not strength. The forces involved in the formation of a kimberlite pipe must destroy the diamonds - at least partially, at least some percentage of the total number of crystals mined! But this doesn't happen. Diamonds are the only crystals found in the minced stone of kimberlite in the state of brand new shiny freshly minted coins!

It turns out that a kimberlite pipe is a “factory” for the production of diamonds?

Gas needles and hot spots

Accelerated to enormous speed and possessing incredible kinetic energy, carbide ingots are unable to penetrate the armor of modern military equipment. Thick sheets of super-strong steel are, however, pierced by heated and compressed gas: this is how a cumulative projectile works. It pierces, not burns: the highest pressure applied to a limited area imparts fluidity to the metal, and the gas is forced through the liquefied material in a stream.

In approximately the same way, according to Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Professor Alexander Portnov, the formation of a kimberlite pipe occurs. Gas (mainly hydrogen-methane) bubbles collecting in the upper layers of the mantle play the main role in the genesis of kimberlite pipes.

The conditions created in the place where the crystalline continental shield is supported by an accumulation of gas are quite sufficient for the formation of a needle-thin (on a planetary scale) puncture, which makes it possible for mantle gases to rise to the surface of the earth's surface.

The pressure of many tens of thousands of atmospheres inherent in such gas accumulations is capable of destroying and pushing apart stone monoliths - at least in some areas. Perforation does not occur simultaneously: the interaction of compressed superheated gas and the rocks of the continental platform is long-term, and for a successful breakthrough of the hydrogen-methane mixture, a combination of several circumstances is required - otherwise the bubble, having wasted energy, can hang in the depths of the bowels as a slowly cooling gas lens.

In the Earth's lithosphere there are so-called “hot spots” - areas of convection transfer of thermal energy from many hundreds of kilometers of planetary depths to the surface layers. The same processes also occur in a heated liquid - so the presence of a convective thermal “fountain” in the semi-liquid body mass of our planet can be likened to streams of hot water in a boiling kettle.

The difference, however, is that the surface of the water in the kettle is free, and the liquefied substance of the mantle is covered on top with a thick layer of rock “ice”. But the intensity of heat generation at convection points is such that the energy imparted to the solid crust is sufficient to soften it.

Such “springs” of intraplanetary heat flow for several tens of millions of years. And if the relatively thin oceanic crust is melted right through, then the several times thicker continental crust only partially loses its strength under the influence of heat - but does not lose its integrity. Until a gas bubble appears at the place where it is heated...

Gas needle pierces stone

The diameter of the “leg” of a glass of a kimberlite pipe at great depths is measured in meters – with a channel length of 100-150 km. Only upon the release of the hot (and compressed to a density greater than that of water) gas into relatively loose sedimentary rocks does the flow expand. A cone is formed, giving the kimberlite pipe a glass-like appearance.

However, closer to the surface, at a depth of several tens or hundreds of meters, the already significantly weakened in strength, but still voluminous and hot gas flow encounters a zone that resembles (in relation to a crystalline monolith of the continental shield) a porous sponge. Without encountering resistance, the mantle gas expands, “blows through” crushed rocks over a vast area around the upper edge of the kimberlite glass - and dissolves in the planet’s atmosphere.

Traces of such interaction are clearly visible. At a distance of up to half a kilometer from a kimberlite pipe, crystalline minerals undergo changes in chemical composition. As a result, they develop (or are greatly enhanced) natural luminescence.

Apatite, which usually glows yellow in ultraviolet light, acquires a blue glow - and this property is characteristic only of apatites found near a kimberlite pipe. Zircon, which rarely exhibits the ability to luminesce, begins to glow clearly and brightly after contact with mantle gases.

And although the colors of gemstones remain unchanged with increased luminescence, the increase in their brightness in daylight and artificial light does not go unnoticed. Jewelry inserts made from such minerals are more expensive.

The ability to re-emit light also increases in other crystalline minerals located near the upper head of the kimberlite pipe. This phenomenon is explained by the chemical activity of mantle gas and the presence in its composition of such metals as europium, zirconium, and cerium. It is they, being introduced into the structure of crystalline formations, that make dull natural stones glow under the rays of the sun.

But where do diamonds come from in kimberlite?

If diamonds were formed before mantle gas seeped to the surface, then the appearance of the most precious gem would be approximately the same as that of other crystals found in kimberlites.

Moreover: on the surface of the stones that underwent a monstrous transfer from the hellish depths to the level of sedimentary rocks, characteristic traces are observed. Heated gas flows melt and deform the surface layers of the crystals, and they become covered with specific folds. This kind of “shagreen” is typical of meteorites and turbine blades.

Diamonds, on the other hand, do not bear any traces of external influence - although moving, for example, along with river pebbles, they roll around, losing their natural rhomboid shape. This means that the perfect shape of diamond crystals confirms the hypothesis about their formation directly in the body of a kimberlite pipe!

But how does it all happen? According to geologists. Meanwhile, in the mantle of the planet, graphite has nowhere to come from and is “forbidden” to be present: at such temperatures and pressures, carbon is unstable and cannot take the form of graphite.

Scientists simply forgot that more than half a century ago, successful experiments were carried out in the Soviet Union on the low-temperature synthesis of diamond from methane. Which simply confirms the possibility of diamond formation in a gaseous fluid rising from the mantle to the surface of the planet.

In the process of decreasing gas pressure as it rises to the surface, conditions arise in the forming kimberlite pipe for the “adjacent” of free valence bonds of a carbon atom to other similar atoms. This is how giant carbon molecules are formed, consisting of countless atoms and which we identify as diamonds.

However, conditions favorable for diamond synthesis do not always arise. This is why only 5-10% of kimberlite pipes contain crystalline carbon.

Additional confirmation of this theory comes from studies of the age of minerals found in kimberlite. The age of that famous pipe near the city of Kimberley is 85 million years. And the garnets (pyropes) found in it were formed more than three billion years ago! The Udachnaya pipe (Yakutia) is 425 million years old. Clinopyroxene, which is part of the Udna kimberlite, is one billion one hundred forty-nine million years old. However, the age of the Yakut diamonds exactly matches the ages of the “parent” pipes...

There is a lot of other evidence indicating the simultaneous formation of diamonds and kimberlites filling bottomless “wells”. So there is hope for our planet to have a mythical diamond-bearing layer at great depths - at least

These elegant, outwardly fragile, incredibly beautiful stones with the ability to reflect and refract rays, scattering magical sparks of light around them, were once thrown through volcanic vents onto the surface of planet Earth. In our time, these volcanoes have long been extinct, their above-ground part as a result of erosion processes has disappeared without a trace, but the rocks, stones and other substances frozen in the crater have not disappeared anywhere.

Scientists learned that these vents contain a huge amount of diamonds only in the middle of the last century, when a huge diamond deposit, nicknamed the kimberlite pipe, was found on the territory of the African continent (it was later discovered that such natural formations contain about 90% of natural diamond reserves planets).

People could not ignore such an event - and active searches for such deposits began all over the world. Some countries, such as Botswana, Russia, Canada, South Africa, Angola, were lucky, and having discovered the desired rock, they almost immediately began to develop promising finds, digging a deep hole and creating a huge crater.

Subsequently, scientists noticed an interesting feature of such holes: it is extremely dangerous for helicopters and other aircraft to fly over man-made craters, since the huge hole literally sucks them into itself.

Education

As for the process of formation of a kimberlite pipe and diamonds in it, it looks quite interesting. Several billion years ago, a breakthrough of magmatic solutions and gases occurred in the bowels of the earth (and it is interesting that it did not happen in a thin place in the earth’s crust, the thickness of which is about 10 km, but the explosion pierced a powerful platform 40 km thick).

As a result, a conical-shaped channel appeared, more similar to a champagne glass: the deeper it goes underground, the narrower it becomes and at a certain depth it turns into a vein.

The crater opening of this channel is usually from five hundred meters to one and a half kilometers. After the eruption, breccias (volcanic fragments) and gray-green tuff, the so-called kimberlite, were frozen in the crater of this crater - a rock consisting of phlogopite, garnet, olivine, carbonates and other minerals.

When these minerals reach the earth's surface by other means, their form is always well-cut crystals. But in the composition of kimberlite there are no such faces, and the grains are round in shape. As for diamonds, they appear on the surface in a ready-made form with sharp edges that can be used to cut glass without processing.

Despite the fact that a kimberlite pipe is usually filled with gems by 10%, extracting diamonds from the rock is a rather labor-intensive process, since only about 1 carat of gems, which is 0.2 g, is extracted from one ton of kimberlite.

The first kimberlite pipe, called the “Big Hole,” was found in the mid-19th century. in South Africa, in the Kimberley province (where the name of both the diamond-containing rock and the vent itself came from). This deposit is also the largest quarry that was created by people without the use of any technology.

To create a hole of such a scale in the earth's crust, more than 50 thousand miners were involved, who developed the quarry using shovels and picks. As a result, over fifty years, more than 22 million tons of soil were extracted from the bowels of the earth and more than 2.7 thousand kg of diamonds (about 14.5 million carats) were extracted.

Despite the fact that at the moment the “Big Hole” deposit has completely exhausted itself, the diamond quarry still remains a local attraction, since for more than a century it has held the glory of the largest man-made hole in our world: its area is about 17 hectares, along the perimeter the hole has 1 .6 km, and the width is 463 m.

As for the depth, at present it is not very great, but previously it went down to 240 m. When diamond mining stopped, the deposit was filled up to 215 m, after which underground streams filled the bottom of the quarry with water and created a lake. Currently the hole is 40 m deep.

Quarry "Mir"

In the middle of the last century, on the territory of Yakutia in Russia, geologists found several kimberlite pipes at once - the first was “Zarnitsa”, discovered in 1954. Few gems were found in it, but the discovery of this vent prompted geologists to continue the search work.

And as it turned out, not in vain: the very next year, one of the largest diamond deposits of our planet called “Mir” was discovered in these parts (on the map you can find it near the city of Mirny at the following coordinates: 62°31'42″N. latitude 113°59'39″E). It is noteworthy that it was here that the largest gem in Russia, called “XXVI Congress of the CPSU,” weighing 342.5 carats (that’s a little more than 68 grams) was found.

The country's authorities paid great attention to the development of this Mir kimberlite pipe, attracted a huge number of people - and after some time, among the wild and uninhabited region, first a village was built, and then the city of Mirny, located more than a thousand kilometers from Yakutsk. The settlement was immediately placed so that the kimberlite pipe was right next to Mirny.

Work on the development of the Mir deposit in permafrost conditions (in winter the temperature here is often -60°C) was extremely difficult - it was very difficult to work with the earth and the soil had to be undermined with dynamite. Within a few years, the quarry produced about 2 kg of diamonds per year, of which 20% had jewelry value, and the rest were used for industrial purposes.

At the moment, it is believed that the Mir quarry produces the largest amount of diamonds in Russia and a quarter of all diamonds on our planet (and this, despite the fact that in size it is still somewhat inferior to another similar deposit found in these parts - the kimberlite pipe “Udachnaya”): its diameter is 1.2 km, and its depth is 525 m.

Several years ago, diamond mining in the quarry was stopped after the depth of the hole reached critical dimensions, and all work was transferred to the Mir underground mine. Working underground is difficult in itself, and in this case it is further complicated by the fact that underground water constantly floods the mine, as a result of which it has to be constantly pumped out and directed into natural faults that were found in the earth's crust.

Work in the Mir kimberlite pipe is not going to be stopped in the near future, since geologists have discovered that a huge amount of diamonds lie at a depth of more than one kilometer, and therefore the Mir deposit can be developed for more than thirty years.

Quarry "Udachnaya"

The largest kimberlite pipe in Russia is also located in Yakutia, 20 km from the Arctic Circle (on the map it can be found at the following coordinates: 66°25′ N 112°19′ E). Its parameters are:

• Width – 2 thousand m;
• Length – 1.6 thousand m;
• Depth – 530 m.

This hole actually consists of two pipes adjacent to each other - Western and Eastern. In terms of their characteristics, gems from different vents are quite different from each other.

Despite the fact that this diamond quarry was opened in the mid-50s, it began to be actively developed only in the early eighties. Currently, gems are mined in an open-pit manner, but since the depth of the deposit has become critical for this type of mining, an underground mine has recently begun operating here.

Experts say that most of the diamonds from the Udachnaya Kimberlite pipe have already been removed from the bowels of the earth, and some of the finds are amazing. For example, a stone was recently found here containing about 30 thousand diamonds, which is a million times higher than their usual concentration.

Kimberlite pipes and mines of the Russian Federation - according to tornado
and tornado-type, craters, batholiths, uranium calderas
Prevention of violations in fields and hazardous industries

• - holes in the ground, dangerous places, 2 scientific videos, 63.8 MB, download in rar archive
• - technical explosions on kimberlites, 4 scientific videos, 257 MB, download in rar archive
• - “Belaz” and equipment on kimberlites, 8 scientific videos, 409 MB, download in rar archive
• - kimberlites "InGOK", "Udachnaya", etc., 17 scientific videos, 552 MB, download in rar archive
• - kimberlite "Phemiston Open" Australia, 9 scientific videos, 451 MB, download in rar archive

In Yakutia, on the left bank of the middle reaches of the Irel River (the right tributary of the Vilyui River) in close proximity to the city of Mirny, there is the largest diamond quarry in the world in terms of total volume (a sample of the primary terrestrial lithosphere of red-brown color - to magma) - the Mir kimberlite pipe "(the city of Mirny appeared after the opening of the pipe and was named after it). The quarry has a depth of 525 m and a diameter of 1.2 km, and is one of the largest quarries in the world.

Uranium quarry. The Mir kimberlite uranium pipe is the most typical example of a uranium deposit in the world. In addition to underground mines, open pits (some of them up to 500 m deep) are a popular method of uranium mining. It is believed that the radiation danger of quarries for excavation workers and miners is less than that of closed underground mines (such as the Fergana or Almaden cinnabar mine), but is aggravated by direct releases of lithospheric rocks and volcanic gases (in this case, the working conditions are the same - dangerous).

From time immemorial, nature has puzzled man with its phenomena - tornadoes, kimberlites, each time throwing up more and more new mysteries. One of these extraordinary and amazing phenomena can be considered giant holes in the Earth - mixer-type kimberlites (breakdown to the lithosphere and magma).

These amazing natural phenomena arise for various reasons: natural anomalies (primary kimberlites - breakdowns of meteorites and bolides of the earth's crust), cataclysms (fracture of lithospheric plates), human intervention (the release of karst waters and lakes onto the surface of kimberlites) do their job. The tube looks small from above.

However, increasingly, the causes of such phenomena remain hidden from the eyes of non-specialists, which makes them potentially dangerous - kimberlites, like tornadoes, are not visible (there are special modern methods of working out not only with light and photo filters, but also on a PC, 32-bit digital digital processes - site author).

For the environment, open-pit mining of uranium can pose a danger due to radioactive dust entrainment (especially from dumps). Landscape changes, disturbance and change of vegetation cover, adverse effects on local fauna are the inevitable consequences of open-pit mining. In the mine - leaching of hazardous components by underground water (including springs, underground and above-ground rivers, Donetsk).

A feature of modern kimberlites since 1969 is that the production capacity of the quarries has reached the third, lower - karst level of flooding by groundwater and rivers, incl. poisonous and radioactive (dangerous fumes and volcanoes). Contamination of surface and groundwater (including karst) waters often gives rise to problems, especially when using leaching liquids during extraction by solution and draining liquids during hydraulic development (including when there is a source of spontaneous influx of water into the quarry - atmospheric precipitation, surface waters such as rivers and lakes and karst outlets of groundwater and rivers, the most dangerous).

Currently, it is the second largest man-made crater in the world. This mine is located in Russia, near the city of Mirny. The “world” is so huge that unauthorized visits to the quarry are prohibited (especially of the suicide type), since open-pit mines create a very strong downward flow of air from the caldera (the release of mixed volcanic gases with the influx of water into the quarry). In winter, the temperature in the quarry drops so much that it freezes machine oil and rubber, and leads to the gradual collapse of the quarry. By the time the mine was temporarily closed for examination and reconstruction of the next stage of development (similar to the city of Almaden, Spain, the cinnabar mine - shafts and adits from inside a kimberlite uranium pipe), the time for transport to rise from the bottom of the quarry to the surface reached 1.5-2 hours.

Dangerous photo of kimberlite, misleading - the bottom is not visible, but the structure of the upper walls is visible
Dangerous color of kimberlite (red outcrops) - similar to the “Femiston Open” type (Calgory Super Pit, Australia)
Modern computer processing of the author according to the “wet kimberlite” type - PC computer (color separation)

The most dangerous hallucinations on kimberlites - the bottom of the pipe is not visible, PC computer simulation of the site’s author
This image does not exist - it is generated by the human brain in an extreme situation of affect
The author of the site obtains such images using his own algorithms on a PC computer (32-bit)
Without such images of brain simulation, work on kimberlites of hazard level III is prohibited

Possible hallucinations and color distortions perception of the Mir kimberlite pipe (Yakutia, Sakha, Russian Federation)
palette of perception of kimberlite "Mir" tubes human senses (author, 2014)

Possible road hallucinations on the road- color distortion of road abstraction kimberlite type
palettes of biological perception by human senses road abstraction

Modeling kimberlite phase trajectories of planetary movement - the paths of drivers on kimberlite
A scheme for correlating the movements of planets in the starry sky and drivers on kimberlite helps to avoid accidents
types of biological perception by human senses complex computer model

Kimberlite pipe "Mir" (bottom), Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russian Federation. Photo: Sergey Karpukhin

Original survey of the bottom of a kimberlite pipe, Mirny, Siberia (RF), depth 525 m, diameter - 1.25 km
Uranium kimberlite and diamond pipe "Mir" - Russia, Mirny (development began in 1957)

Formation of a cascade of highly mineralized waters at the bottom of the Mir kimberlite mine (radiation)
Below, on the penultimate tier (at the bottom) pronounced karst formations and caves are visible

The beginning of the flooding of the ultra-deep quarry "Mir" according to the karst type - kimberlite waters.
Mining depth - 525 m (more than 340 m), upper diameter - 1200 m (exceeds 890 m), water

The quarry, the development of which began in 1957, until its closure in 2011, incidentally produced up to 10 million carats of diamonds per year. "Mir" was sadly closed in 1989 due to the wild conditions of the racketeering working in the field, fugitive prostitutes of all sorts and prisoners from various prisons (including from the city of Almaden, Spain, from forced labor on cinnabar, instead of intellectual and palette work, as well as a refusal to acknowledge that uranium is real, uranium is more expensive) - those who want to profit from radioactive diamonds (Ukraine prohibits their import, cutting, insertion into products and sale, the radiation level is from 99 milliroentgen/hour, only for closed museums, they cause cancer). In 2014, the mine went bankrupt - conflicts with workers were not resolved and there were no examinations, incl. production hazards.

Minimum set of special designations for the transportation of goods from kimberlite deposits
maximum - III (highest) hazard category - karst kimberlite groundwater outcrops

The beginning of complex work at the mining and processing plant and the kimberlite deposit "Mir Quarry" - 1957-2001.

Kimberlite pipe "Udachnaya", Republic of Sakha, Russia (RF). The depth of "Udachnaya" reaches more than 600 meters (ultra-deep and life-threatening - near-batholithic), although it is not as wide as "Mir". Discovered a little later than Mir, Udachnaya is so remote from civilization that the project built its own small town for the mine workers, named after the deposit. In 2010, the developers stole the technology of underground mines such as red cinnabar in Almaden, Spain (West EU) and went bankrupt in 2014 - the kimberlite pipe partially changed (expanded) the type of mining at the mine to underground, incl. similar to the red cinnabar mine "Khaidarkan" (Fergana Valley, Kyrgyzstan, CIS - the oldest mine, mining at a depth of up to 400 m in adits), since open pit mining was suspended for examination of the rock output and dumps (radioactive, over 100 milliroentgen/hour). The kimberlite pipe has been developed since 1982.

A zone of gas release has been identified (a rise at the bottom of the quarry). The Udachnaya pipe is a deposit in the north of Yakutia. Located 20 kilometers from the Arctic Circle, in the Daldyn-Alakit kimberlite field. Work in this quarry has been carried out by open-pit mining since 1982, like the Mir pipe, the quarry has reached a depth below which ore can be extracted by underground mine workings (gas blowing, flooding). 66 o 26 "8.27" N, 112 o 19 "1.90".

Kimberlite pipe "Udachnaya" - karst bottom flooding, danger level III, Yakutia (RF)
Depth 530 m (more than 340 m - karst type), length - 1700 m, and diamonds are not mineral deposits (C)
Kimberlite has reached the third - maximum danger level - volcanic ash (bottom left)
In contrast to the round Mir kimberlite (above), the bottom of the Udachnaya kimberlite resembles a heart

Inadmissible digital photo of kimberlite is in progress - to identify the correct structure of roads
modern PC computer line processing of the author is used - “Desert” (“Vardanes”)
Computer tricks of the site’s author to show hidden (invisible to the eye) gray roads

Kimberlite pipe "Udachnaya", Republic of Sakha, Russia (RF), depth 600 m, crater diameter - 900 m

The Siberian Platform of the Russian Federation is one of the largest ancient (pre-Riphean) platforms located in the middle part of Northern Asia of the Russian Federation. The western border of the platform coincides with the river valley. Yenisei; northern - with the southern edge of the Byrranga mountains, eastern - with the lower reaches of the river. Lena (Verkhoyansk marginal trough), in the south-east. the border approaches the southern tip of the ridge. Dzhugjur; in the south it runs along faults along the southern edge of the Stanovoy and Yablonevoy ridges; then, bending around from the north along the complex fault system of Transbaikalia and Pribaikalia, it descends to the southern tip of the lake. Baikal, the southwestern border of the platform extends along the Main East Sayan Fault.

Village of a geological exploration party searching for deposits of the USSR, Sakha (Yakutia), 1950, 20th century.

The structure of the Siberian Platform of the Russian Federation is distinguished by an Archean-Proterozoic folded crystalline foundation and a sedimentary Riphean-Phanerozoic cover quietly lying on it. The foundation protrudes to the surface in the north (Anabar massif and Olenek uplift), south-east. (Aldan shield) and in the south-west. (Baikal and East Sayan marginal uplifts and Kansky ledge); on the rest of the territory of the Siberian Platform, the foundation is covered by a cover of sedimentary deposits up to 10-12 km thick and is divided into a system of geo-tectonic blocks descended to different depths (horst-fault tertiary structures are the most dangerous).

The total thickness of the earth's crust (up to the Mohorovichichi surface) varies from 25-30 km (in the Vilyui and Tunguska syneclises of the Russian Federation) to 40-45 km (on the Aldan shield and in the marginal uplifts of the basement in the south). The Aldan shield and the Anabar massif of the Russian Federation, separated under the cover of the sedimentary cover by the Urik-Vilyui Late Precambrian aulacogen of the Russian Federation, form the Eastern megablock of the basement of the Siberian Platform of the Russian Federation. The structure of the basement involves highly metamorphosed Archean and Proterozoic crystalline rocks folded into folds (gneisses, crystalline schists, amphibolites, charnockites, marbles, etc.), the absolute age of which ranges from 2.3 (Anabar massif of the Russian Federation) to 3.7 (Kan ledge RF) billion years.

Kimberlite is a complex hybrid (complex) rock in which minerals formed under different thermodynamic conditions are combined like a “solid” tornado (or a funnel of water in a river or ocean). Kimberlite breccias contain fragments of sedimentary rocks of the cover and crystalline rocks of the basement, as well as xenoliths of deep mantle rocks. The bulk of the rock cementing these fragments has an uneven-grained structure. It turns out that the rocks of the upper part of the earth's crust are tornadoed according to the type of tornado-like movement of air in the atmosphere - the capture and distribution of rocks in accordance with a tornado (thrombus, tornado), they also move.

Kimberlite pipe "Mir", "Udachnaya" for the phenomenon of an "inferno" type atmosphere (left), a special
computer processing of the author PC computer atmosphere, imitation of kimberlite - cement mining (right)
The author’s special method for studying the phenomena of the atmosphere and rocks, the author’s development of the site
For those interested in mixed kimberlites - in the author's development

During the breakdown of the lithosphere (primary meteorites), the brown primary rock of the lithospheric plates is captured
and its involvement in the process of rotation with the release of volcanic gases of magma (sublimating spinels - diamonds)
Special author's processing of tornadoes (negative images and line processing), PC
Hypothetical representation of a kimberlite pipe by image - "view from the earth's crust" (atmosphere)
The rotation and movement of kimberlite pipes is like a tornado, leaving traces behind them - failures

The movement of soils and underwater water continues, and the tendency for new depressions to form in the ground is only increasing. The primary task of geologists and geophysicists remains to find out the reasons for their occurrence (tornadoing) and prevent possible tragedies that can be caused by carelessness and illiteracy in kimberlites. However, putting aside prejudices, we can say that nature fascinates with the manifestation of its power. Even if this power is destructive for humans (kimberlite palettes).

Photo of a tornado from space, the type of tornado that forms kimberlite pipes (including those with breakdown)
meteorites of the primary lithosphere, red-brown ferruginous elements - up to magma)
Computer development by the author of the image of the structure of an atmospheric tornado in the negative

The photo simulates the “entrance to a tornado” (hypothetically Almaden, Spain, EU)