Mirny Diamond Mine
From LoveToKnow EngagementRings
Mirny Diamond Mine has a history filled with diamond hunters, Cold War secrecy, and a unique diamond. The word “Mirny” means peaceful but the mine's history is full of mystery and adventure. Today the world's largest open pit diamond mine is abandoned, yet during operation, Mirny Mine was one of the world's leading diamond producers. In fact, the degree of diamond production was controversial. How did Mirny Mine become one of the jewelry industry's great mysteries?
Mirny Diamond Mine Overview
Mirny Diamond Mine, aka Mir Diamond Mine, is located in Mirny, Eastern Siberia. The USSR's first diamond mine opened in 1957. The mine produced an astounding two million carats of diamonds annually during operation. After operating for 47 years, the mine closed in 2004.
Mirny mine has a physical measurement of 525 meters in depth and 1,200 meters in width. The pit is so large that it takes a truck two hours to drive from the bottom to the top. The area around the mine is a no-fly zone because the deep hole creates suction, making air flight dangerous. Before the no-fly regulation, a number of helicopters crashed due to the suction.
Stalin's Diamond Hunters
Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party, was determined to find a natural source of diamonds on Soviet soil. Many manufacturing operations used large quantities of industrial-grade diamonds, creating a dependence on the goodwill of the British DeBeers, who controlled the diamond industry. He feared that this dependence on DeBeers diamonds could be used against the Soviet Union at will. Stalin wanted to find and cultivate domestic diamonds to secure Soviet independence from Western Democratic powers and establish the Soviet Union as an industrial world leader.
Most of the world's diamonds came from kimberlite-rich areas in South Africa. In the early 1930s, Soviet geologists reported that certain parts of Siberia had the right conditions to produce kimberlite. By 1947, Stalin regularly sent out expeditions of geologists and diamond hunters to search for kimberlite in hopes of discovering diamond-rich land. The diamond hunt went on for eight years before the discovery of Mirny Mine.
Geological Discoveries
An early discovery of Siberian garnets by Soviet geologist Larissa Popugaieva may have led to the eventual founding of Mirny Mine. In 1953, Popugaieva found garnet in stone samples from Yakutia, Siberia. When garnets are present, diamonds are often nearby. Unfortunately, further investigation led to a small unusable diamond reserve. Yet the presence of the diamond deposits in Yakutia proved that diamonds could be found in the Siberia. The hunt continued, using garnet as a marker for potential diamond sites.
On June 13, 1955, Soviet geologists Yuri Khabardin, Ekaterina Elagina, and V. Avdeenko discovered the land that became Mirny Mine. The team of geologists, a part of the Amakinsky Expedition, was examining garnet-rich areas along the Vilyul River. Khabardin dug a hole in a ravine and obtained soil samples. After examining the soil samples, he discovered the presence of quality diamond minerals. Upon his discovery, Khabardin contacted the leaders of the expedition, using the code, "I am smoking the pipe of peace." The mine and the land around it were later named Mirny, after the Russian code word for peace. Mirny Mine opened in 1957.
Mining Operations
Considering the Siberian climate, it is amazing that Mirny Mine became one of the world's largest diamond producers. In the summer, the cold temperatures kept permanent layers of ice on the ground, permafrost, which turned to mud on warmer days. The seven-month long Siberian winter produced low temperatures that could render mining equipment useless. Oil fuel froze, rubber tires broke apart and steel riggings cracked. Yet the Soviet miners prevented these problems by using jet engines and dynamite. They used jet engines to burn away layers of ice to reach soil. When the jet engines were not enough, they blasted holes into the frozen ground with dynamite.
Due to the presence of permafrost, Mirny Mine's processing plant was built 20 miles away from the mine. As the mine grew, a city was built nearby for the mining workers and named Aikhal. Because of the permafrost, Aikhal was built on steel poles for support.
Mirny Mine's Golden Era
Even though Stalin created Mirny Mine to harvest domestic industrial-grade diamonds, the mine also produced large quantities of gem-grade diamonds. By the early 1960s, Mirny gem-quality diamonds were the Soviet Union's largest cash export to Western countries. They sold most of their gem-quality diamonds to DeBeers.
The Silver Bear Diamond Mystery
In the 1970s, Mirny Mine introduced a unique type of high quality diamond called the Silver Bear. Each Silver Bear diamond was identical in size and shape. Mirny Mine produced large quantities of Silver Bear diamonds and sold most of them to DeBeers over the years.
DeBeers was skeptical and suspicious of the how one mine could produce such large quantities of uniform diamonds. They suspected that the diamonds came from more than one mine. DeBeers experts were also surprised that Mirny Mine sustained such high levels of consistent diamond production for years. Normally kimberlite pipes produce diamonds at a rate that increases each year before reaching a plateau. Once the plateau of diamond production occurs, the annual diamond quantities begin to decline. DeBeers estimated that Mirny Mines diamond productions should have declined by the 1970s. However, the mine continued to produce large quantities of quality diamonds.
DeBeers sent Sir Phillip Oppenheimer to investigate Mirny mine operations in 1976. He was detained in Moscow for most of his visit and was only able to visit the Mirny Mine for a short tour. Oppenheimer did not have a chance to investigate.
The Cold War secrecy kept the Western world from ever learning much about Mirny mining procedures. The little available evidence points to one mine with an unusually rich source of diamonds. Mirny Diamond Mine and the Silver Bear continue to be a mystery.
Learn More
This page has been accessed 951 times. This page was last modified 16:45, 1 April 2009.
© 2006-2009 LoveToKnow Corp.
Print this page
Follow ltk on twitter
Visit us on facebook