WHERE SHOULD YOU LOOK FOR DIAMONDS? AS A GEOLOGIST

  AZEIP WHERE EVERY FAMILY HAS A TEAM
WHERE ASSIGNOR IS FIRST PURCHASER FROM DEVELOPER [SOLICITORS LETTERHEAD]
“A WILDERNESS IN CONTRAST TO THOSE AREAS WHERE

THIS IS THE SYSTEM MESSAGES FILE WHERE THE
06092006 NRMDIGS NEW SITE CHECKLIST 1 WHERE IS THE
1 REQUEST FOR RETURN CASES WHERE THE CHILDCHILDREN ISARE

As a geologist or engineer, you will use your knowledge to help your employer evaluate projects

Where should you look for diamonds?


As a geologist or engineer, you will use your knowledge to help your employer evaluate potential projects. Suppose your company wants to get into diamonds. Where should you look?

You know enough to begin prospecting for diamonds using the web with, say, Google Earth. Search for places where plumes have cut across old subduction zones. The subduction zones pull carbon in sediments to the depths needed to form diamonds. A rising plume that hits a subduction zone captures inclusions as it ascends, returning the diamonds to the surface.

Since plumes make straight lines of volcanoes on the ocean floor as plates move over them, it is easy to track them back onto the continents, to regions where pieces of  continents where sutured together. For example, you studied the Precambrian assembly of North America in your Introduction to Geology course.

An easy place to get initial background on diamonds is Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond

and follow in no particular order
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberlite

Notice that indicator minerals in streams lead you to Kimberlites. Work your way upstream, deciding which tributary to follow based on which has the better indicator minerals. The closer you are to the source, the more diverse, bigger, and less rounded and sorted they are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_pipe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maar          Note the appearance from space
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatreme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ground

and other interesting links from these pages.


Notice that indicator minerals in stream lead you to Kimberlites. The closer you are, the more diverse, bigger, and less rounded they are.


Unexplored areas without surface Maars still have indicator minerals in streams eroding the deposits. These are named and discussed in the various links from the pages listed above and below.

That is where your new skills come in in the field; you follow the indicator minerals upstream to the hidden pipes now covered by vegetation, soils and younger rock. Canada is good ground because the recent glaciers scraped off most of that "overburden".
 
To get you started, here is some work on well known prospects formed when Canada assembled in the Precambrian:

http://www.eos.ubc.ca/research/diamonds/kopylova/intro/emplacement.html

and see the figure from Field and Scott Smith 1998

A company with holdings near a big field.
http://www.wasecoresources.com/projects/jamesbay.html

After development, they decided to stand pat with their current investment.




Here is the American Museum's display on a Russian success story:
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/diamonds/russia.html
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/diamonds/carbon.html   http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/diamonds/formation.html
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/diamonds/how.html

and some Russian mines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_diamond_pipe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udachnaya_pipe
complete with Google satellite photo
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=66.435421,112.314606&spn=.127002,.449444&t=k&hl=en

For me, winter break starts Thursday after finals. Hours later, I'll be many hundreds of miles from here, headed for the field. The world is waiting for you, and most of it has never been looked at by people who find resources. Where will you go?

Prof. Smart


10000563 (SORDORS) WHEREAS PURSUANT TO SUBSECTION 30(1) OF THE
102 15 THE CLAM DIGGER® WHERE ONLY THE
20012002 CORE APPLICATIONS ENCOMPASS VISION A WORLD WHERE YOU


Tags: diamonds? as, should, where, diamonds?, geologist