DIAMOND MINE LOCATIONS

Diamond Occurrence:

A “pebble” picked up by a child on the banks of the Orange River in South Africa in 1866 and identified as a 21-carat diamond was the first step in opening the diamond mine fields of that region, which have become the greatest in the world.

The diamond rush to search for alluvial diamonds in the gravel of the Orange and Vaal rivers was greatly accelerated in 1870 and 1871 following the discovery of “dry diggings” in the district near present-day Kimberley.

These diggings were roughly circular patches of yellow clay in which diamonds were found. As the miners dug deeper in the clay, often called the “yellow ground,” they found below it a hard, bluish rock that also proved to be productive.

This “blue ground,” a rock called kimberlite, is the parent material from which yellow ground is formed by weathering.

Further mining disclosed that the circular areas of yellow and blue ground are the tops of funnel-shaped pipes of kimberlite that continue downward for an undetermined distance. Similar pipes, not all of which contain diamonds, have been found at various other locations in South Africa. Pipes are believed to be of volcanic origin.

Discoveries also have been made in Australia, Borneo, Canada, the Ural Mountains and Siberia in Russia, Venezuela, and Guyana.

Isolated stones have been found at various places in the United States, and a kimberlite pipe in Arkansas yields diamonds, although not in sufficient quantities for profitable mining.

In India, which was for centuries the only known source of diamonds in the world, present-day production is limited to small quantities of diamonds from conglomerate beds and from a kimberlite pipe.

Diamonds are found in widely separated localities in Brazil, one near the city of Diamantina in Minas Gerais, another in Bahia, and others in south-central Brazil. The Brazilian diamond workings are most valuable in the production of ballas and carbonado.

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