Picture an excavation site for an enormous new skyscraper….this would be very similar to an open pit diamond mine. At its deepest point, some 3,000 feet below the surface of the earth is the floor of our open pit mine. This depth of 3,000 feet is deep enough to accommodate the Empire State Building, twice.
Inside de this enormous hole in the ground, a number of dirt roads wind their way down the pit to the floor of the open pit mine. The mine formation is stepped, much like the Roman Colosseum, to better support this enormous hole, and to stop the mine from caving in on itself. A power shovel loads our exposed bluish earth into enormous trucks that will carry this heavy load all the way back up to the surface of the earth.
We can mine up to 20,000 tons of diamond bearing ore a day, it is necessary to sift through more than 2tonnes of of kimberlite ore just to find 1 carat of diamonds. When our trucks reach the surface, we will dump this diamondiferous ore onto a moving conveyor belt to carry our diamond rich find to the separating plants.
This once labour intensive hands in sorting process has today been completely replaced with fully automated sorting machines to keep these fabulous stones from tempting others. It is not that our motto in the diamond industry is ‘Trust No One’ perhaps more it is ‘If You Can’t Touch It, You Can’t Take It”.
Truly an incredible undertaking and a herculean task for a mere handful of gems.