Historical past of the Kimberley Diamond Fields
South Africa’s first diamond was present in 1866 within the Northern Province, alongside the Orange River banks. Following the invention of the diamond, there was a intensive diamond rush, with 1000’s of hopeful prospectors flooding the realm seeking alluvial diamonds alongside the river’s banks in addition to by the banks of the close by Vaal River.
Inside a couple of years, a number of giant diamonds have been discovered, amongst them one situated on a farm referred to as Jagersfontein, which later turned a well-known diamond mine. After a lot of discoveries, the realm turned referred to as Beaconsfield, which is right now a suburb of Kimberley. One 12 months after the invention of the Jagersfontein diamond, the Kimberley and De Beers pipes have been found close by Bultfontein, and related discoveries have been made at farms comparable to Benaauwheidsfontein, Dorstfontein and Vooruitzicht. A fifth was discovered 20 years later, referred to as the Wesselton pipe.
Whereas the pipes have been initially labored by people, because the depth of the digging elevated a simpler resolution turned vital. In 1888 the De Beers Consolidated Mines got here into being, underneath possession of Cecil John Rhodes, a mixture of the Kimberley and De Beers Mines.
In 1897, the rights to dig the Kimberley Mines have been purchased by a brand new firm – Kimberley Mining Restricted (KML). They mined till 1914, utilizing a technique referred to as opencast pit mining. This continued till World Battle I, in 1914. After the warfare resulted in 1918, the mine was merely maintained for the subsequent 8 years. At that time De Beers Consolidated took cost, however aside from a couple of samplings of the mine’s contents, as soon as within the Fifties and once more within the Nineteen Eighties, the mine has lain dormant. In 2002, the New Diamond Company (NDC) took management, however with out funding the dumps and the mine turned out there. Immediately the Meepo Funding Consortium, a part of the New African mining operations, has the rights to each the Caravan Park Dumps and the Kamfersdam Dumps of the Kimberley mines.
City of Kimberley
Kimberley itself was established in 1871 following the diamond discoveries, and the city’s development was largely because of the varied mines constructed within the surrounding space. The city is called after kimberlite rocks – geologic volcanic rock formations that happen in vertical pipes, and which include diamonds. Over time, the formations erode and the diamonds are carried downstream by rivers and streams to gather in alluvial diamond deposits. Not all kimberlites include diamonds, and of these discovered not all are of enough high quality or amount to draw curiosity. Nonetheless the alluvial diamonds discovered are normally of upper high quality than these discovered contained in the kimberlite pipes – as a result of by the point the alluvial diamonds are found of their riverbed places, low high quality stones have been destroyed by the river’s present and solely prime quality stones stay.
One of many world’s premier areas for diamond mining, the Kimberley space is thought right now globally by members of the business. It’s practically 500 km from Johannesburg and practically 1,000 km from Cape City.
Deserted Mine Dumps
Immediately, within the space surrounding Kimberley there are a variety of deserted mine dumps which will have financial potential. Three of these dumps are: The Caravan Park dumps, the Kamfersdam dumps and the Eddie Williams Oval dumps. The Kimberley Municipality owns the mining rights to those areas, which they hope to show someday into low-cost housing. Diamond Restoration may be carried out on the plant which is secured, and has each water and electrical energy. There’s a excellent space for disposing of tailings. Kimberley’s infrastructure means it may be simply reached by airplane, railway or different technique of public transport, an important boon to mining the realm.
Reliability of Studies
Whereas surveying has been performed of late, it isn’t simple to evaluate the reliability of the resultant report. Primarily, each tailings and waste materials have been dumped collectively, making the grades considerably unreliable and though samples have been taken from sure areas, the grades in different areas not examined could possibly be vastly completely different. Immediately’s profitable diamond recoveries from the Kimberley tailing dumps could possibly be indicative of poor strategies used initially within the diamond restoration vegetation of the earlier century. One other attainable rationalization is that beforehand the fabric was floor too coarsely and the smaller stones weren’t launched or that the poorer graded materials was dumped together with the tailings. As an skilled investor in New Africa Mining, I’d say that this materials’s diamonds, via the processes of weathering, have been launched and are turning up in nice portions, additionally rising the variety of diamonds being recovered.
Caravan Park dumps
West of the Kimberly Mine Museum, these dumps maintain materials initially mined from the Kimberley mine – one of many greatest mines that existed because the nineteenth century drew to a detailed – from 1871 till 1914. The diggers mined to an final depth of 1,097 meters. The caravan park sits on high of fabric that’s between 1 and a pair of meters thick, and because it accommodates some 595,000 tons of tailings, graded 9 cpht, there are roughly 53,550 carats price of complete diamonds situated within the grounds right here, with the most important diamond recovered from this dump thus far weighing in at practically 23 carats. In 2005, the dumps have been mined for a complete of 187 days and 1,122 hours. A complete of 74,800 tons have been mined and 4,874.28 carats have been recovered at a mean grade of 6.7 cpht. Estimates are that some 42% of the unique dump materials exists, which implies that there’s extraordinary potential for mining and an important return on the funding it should require to deliver these mines to a completely lively working state.
Kamfersdam dumps
Some six kilometers north of Kimberley, the Kamfersdam dumps maintain materials from the Kamfersdam mine, first found in 1880 and mined till 1914, when World Battle I broke out. By that point it had been mined to 104 meters deep. The Kamfersdam tailings dumps are all located subsequent to the deserted Kamfersdam Mine north of Kimberley. The traditionally head grade of Kamfersdam was 28 carats per 100 tons (cpht). The 2 tailings of this dump complete 5.2 meters or 5.4 million tons of tailings, which implies there are an inferred.63 million complete carats at 12 cpht. If 1 million tons are mined right here per 12 months, there needs to be one other 4 – 6 years during which to utilize this useful resource. Regardless of the 12 cpht inferred, it’s really fairly troublesome to establish the grade of the fabric situated on this dump, although it may be used for now. It is going to be vital to find the precise grade, in addition to the typical worth per diamond carat – particularly whether it is to be in contrast with the diamonds discovered within the Caravan Park dumps so {that a} true estimate of its financial worth may be ascertained. Over the subsequent 4-6 years,mining these dumps needs to be an especially profitable enterprise, properly well worth the funding and a dependable supply of revenue and funding return.
Eddie Williams Oval dumps
Some 3 kilometers north of Kimberley, these are a lot of dumps which have only a few sources left inside and are usually not price discussing a lot additional, so this paper will chorus from offering any extra particulars at this stage.
