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227 Carat Diamond Found In Angola


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Maybe not in North America but another honking big rock, 227 karats, dug up in Angola.  Man I'm just panning the wrong rivers!

http://www.mining.com/another-large-diamond-dug-lulo/

 

lucapa diamond_227-carat-.jpg

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That's it. Setting aside a couple weeks to go diamond prospecting here in Wyoming this summer then. :biggrin:

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Might want to see what that hopper circuit costs first :)  Impressive bit of tech, gotta wonder what the folks up in the great white north would have caught with it.... but they are not working alluvials like the angolans.

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I'm not sure what it is, is it like a series of jigs and grease sluices or something?

I'm just gonna go low tech and look for topographical depressions, blue ground, and chromian diopsides/pyrope in the pan. 

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I have a developing idea for a recirculating grease table with a heater element to keep the water the right tempature.  I am only going to put it into action if I move back to an area with known diamonds.  I think if I was going to do something like that I would screen off larger rocks and have a smaller screen get rid of the finer material to just run sand to about marble size across it.  

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Would a stone as large as a marble stick to a grease table?  Never used one myself.  Only piece of equipment I have ever seen used is a shaking jig, manual and mechanical, however those fella's were after topaz and corundum's.  It was fun tagging along on that trip and there were a few shiny treats in the screens.

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Probably depends on the thickness of the grease vrs the size of the diamond. Just as gold miners classified there material to maximize production the common size gold, so do the diamond miners. As I understand the process the matrix is crushed to a certain size for the usual diamonds...I wonder how many real big diamonds have been crushed or lost in tailings because of these methods...?

Hey, DD lets go diamond mining in OZ...hahaha

fred

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I remember reading the biggest diamond found in Wyoming was something like 20 or 30 carats, and seems it was one of the biggest in the United States too, but I forget exactly the numbers. Doesn't seem like that would be much bigger than a marble so that's probably a good idea with the classifying.

I'm having trouble ID'ing kimberlite from internet photos, it seems to vary so much - sometimes it looks like porphyry, other times it looks like cement, other times it looks like basalt. Seems like something hard to ID in the field due to the inconsistent and non-homogenous nature of it too (streak, hardness, etc are often meaningless on rocks, especially ones with many inclusions and different makeups). Anyone got any tips for positively ID'ing it if you've never held it before in your hand? The local geology museum didn't have any samples to check out unfortunately, which is odd because there aren't many geology museums in Wyoming and there aren't many other states with commercial diamond deposits. I think I'll donate some if I end up finding some good representative types, for other people wondering the same thing.

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Jasong I know what you mean.  There are a lot of variations on kimberlite and not much in the way of what to look for locally anywhere.  Most I've been able to ever figure out on my own is to look for garnets and blueish materials in area's that have volcanic activity.  Other than that just checking the old gold pan, where there is water, and hoping for something interesting to show up in the cons.... snagged a fair amount of other stones but not the diamond yet.  One of bucket list places to go is where they have been found before, Crater of Diamonds, however thats a trip I keep putting off for longer walk abouts ;)

As Fred thinks so do I in that there may be a fair few in the tailings... but man thats alot of hard work.  Grading is the way to go and rocks the size of a thumb are fairly rare outside of the mines.  But who knows ;)

Fred I'm looking more at opal and sapphire down under :) As my good friend and his wife do that a fair bit when they are away from the gold fields.  Last year they were in opal, this year gold, next year sapphire in the north east.  I did gold last year and kind of kick myself for not going over and doing the opal with them first.... depends on my funds.  Your welcome when ever ya know :)  This year is gold again and I may make it.... working like a wood chuck to do it though.

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