Bright shining diamonds

Blog Aug 31 Day 6


It was nice having 2 days in one spot, getting laundry done etc. but now we’re on the road to visit the Argyle Diamond mine, Australia’s only major diamond producer and now owned by Rio Tinto.

We dropped twelve of the party off at the airport to do a flight over the Bungle Bungles. Here’s a site that tells you all about it: http://www.kimberlyaustralia.com/bungle-bungles.html

The rest of us continued by road to the mine.

This is Bushie’s version of how the Argyle diamond mine started. I prefer it to the sanitised version on line.

In the early 1970s Uranium miners from South Africa thought the terrain in the NE Kimberly looked good for Uranium. Maureen Muggeridge (got a high profile in the mining industry today) a geologist with the company went off on her own little expedition and found a couple of what looked like diamonds. She took them to the senior geologist. On further exploration they found a place littered with diamonds. They sent some off to be tested.

They kept quiet about their find. When the results were positive they kept super quiet. However, as these things go rumours developed but no one could find them. Seeking to quash the rumours, the wily Maureen and the senior geologist set up a dummy exploration site to put suspicious prospectors off the scent. It worked. As soon as the uranium mining lease was up in 1979 CRA (The company they worked for) submitted a bid for diamond prospecting at the site they’d kept secret.

Prospective prospectors were furious at being duped, tried to sue CRA but there was no case to answer. Negotiations with the local indigenous groups commenced, an agreement of compensation was reached and the mine was commissioned in 1985.

Hold onto your hats for information about the mine, courtesy of Ted our knowledgeable guide and an elder of one of the 3 indigenous groups in the area:



You want a job at the mine? Here are the conditions:

2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, day or night. Most people live at the compound (we tourists had to be quiet for those sleeping during the day.)

You will spend your time driving, OR operating machinery that crushes and/or sluices, OR operating shovels and bull dozers etc. dumping slag (the waste from the mine). All this in high heat, 46 degrees C in the monsoon season. No wonder the main complaint the two nurses on site treat is dehydration.

Female employment stands at 35%, they are aiming for 50% so ladies get your hard hats and come on down!

I never found out the what the money is but I assume it’s pretty good, and you will not be able to waste it all on booze, on the compound at least. Alcohol intake is regulated at the source, eg. light beers and only a few hours in which to drink. They breathalyse you before every shift and do random drug testing.

There are health and safety messages everywhere, a particularly fetching one in the toilets about monitoring the colour of your urine for signs of dehydration. If you become seriously ill the Royal Flying Doctor Service will fly you to a hospital.

I was surprised to learn that diamonds are found in the ‘pipes’ of extinct volcanos. This mine is projected to produce until 2010. So far they have been working on and near the surface but are gradually boring in 12 metres underground at an angle, eventually reaching a distance of 23 kms. So far, the main haul has been industrial diamonds (75%); gem quality (15%); and the highly sort after pink diamonds (10%). Every year they issue invitations to the rich and famous to purchase that year’s haul of pink diamonds. So far I have not received an invitation. Big money. A recent recalculation indicates that the south face of the mine is producing 80% of gem quality diamonds. Very rare blue diamonds have been also been found in small numbers.

Essentially processing the diamonds consist of crushing the rock several times, and sluicing off the dross. The diamonds are so hard they wear out the rollers in the cutters within 4 weeks. It is very expensive to replace them. The water used for sluicing is pumped from a nearby dam; the waste water is recycled to use again.

Once the diamonds are revealed the sorters move in, each one accompanied by a security guard. The sorters are searched at every break, and they’re x-rayed on the way out of the mine. Who’d be a guard!

All but the pink diamonds are cut and polished in India then sent to Amsterdam for sale and distribution. The pinks are cut, polished and stored in Perth.

School groups do tours in the hopes that some of them will work at the mines when they graduate. Although the workforce was cut drastically during the GFC numbers are again picking up.

A few people purchased diamonds including my travelling companion, in the form of a very pretty ring that sparkles in the sunshine. I bought a postcard.