Area of ​​the world kimberlite pipe. When did open-pit mining cease? The largest deposits in Russia

In Yakutia, near the city of Mirny, there is the largest diamond quarry in the world by total volume - the Mir kimberlite pipe (the city of Mirny appeared after the discovery of the pipe and was named in its honor). The quarry has a depth of 525 meters and a diameter of 1.2 kilometers.
The formation of a kimberlite pipe occurs during a volcanic eruption, when gases from the bowels of the earth escape through the earth's crust. The shape of such a tube resembles a funnel or glass. A volcanic explosion removes kimberlite from the bowels of the Earth, a rock that sometimes contains diamonds. The breed is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where an 85-carat (16.7 gram) diamond was found in 1871, sparking the Diamond Rush.
On June 13, 1955, geologists searching for a kimberlite pipe in Yakutia saw a tall larch tree whose roots had been exposed by a landslide. The fox dug a deep hole under it. Based on the characteristic bluish color of the soil scattered by the fox, geologists realized that it was kimberlite. A coded radiogram was immediately sent to Moscow: “We lit the peace pipe, the tobacco is excellent.” Soon after 2800 km. off-road, convoys of vehicles flocked to the site of the discovery of the kimberlite pipe. The working village of Mirny grew up around the diamond deposit; now it is a city with a population of 36 thousand people.

The development of the field took place in extremely difficult climatic conditions. To break through the permafrost, it had to be blown up with dynamite. In the 1960s, 2 kg were already produced here. diamonds per year, of which 20% were of jewelry quality and, after cutting and turning into diamonds, could be supplied to a jewelry salon. The remaining 80% of diamonds were used for industrial purposes. The South African company De Beers was concerned about the rapid development of Mir, which was forced to buy Soviet diamonds in order to control prices on the world market. The management of De Beers agreed on the arrival of its delegation in Mirny. The leadership of the USSR agreed to this on the condition that Soviet specialists would visit diamond quarries in South Africa. A De Beers delegation arrived in Moscow in 1976 to fly to Mirny, but the South African guests were deliberately delayed by endless meetings and banquets in Moscow, so when the delegation finally reached Mirny, they had only 20 minutes to inspect the quarry. However, South African experts were still amazed by what they saw, for example, by the fact that the Russians did not use water when processing ore. Although this is understandable: after all, 7 months a year in Mirny there is sub-zero temperature and therefore the use of water is simply impossible.
Between 1957 and 2001, the Mir quarry produced $17 billion worth of diamonds. Over the years, the quarry expanded so much that trucks had to travel 8 km along a spiral road. from bottom to surface. The Russian company ALROSA, which owns the Mir quarry, stopped open-pit ore mining in 2001 because... this method has become dangerous and ineffective. Scientists have found that diamonds lie at a depth of more than 1 km, and at such a depth, it is not a quarry that is suitable for mining, but an underground mine, which, according to the plan, will reach its design capacity of one million tons of ore per year already in 2012. In total, the development of the field is planned for another 34 years.
Helicopters are strictly prohibited from flying over the quarry, because a huge funnel sucks aircraft into itself. The high walls of the quarry are fraught with danger not only for helicopters: there is a threat of landslides, and one day the quarry may swallow the surrounding, including built-up, areas. Scientists are thinking about a project for an eco-city in a now empty huge hole. The head of the Moscow architectural bureau Nikolai Lyutomsky talks about his plans: “The main part of the project is a huge concrete structure, which will become a kind of “plug” for the former quarry and will burst it from the inside. On top of the pit will be covered with a translucent dome on which solar panels will be installed. Climate in Yakutia it is harsh, but there are many clear days and the batteries will be able to generate about 200 MW of electricity, which should more than meet the needs of the future city. In addition, it is possible to use the Earth’s heat. In winter, the air in Mirny is cooled to –60°C, but at a depth below. 150 meters (that is, below the permafrost) the ground temperature is positive, which adds energy efficiency to the project. The city space is proposed to be divided into three tiers: the lower one for growing agricultural products (the so-called vertical farm), the middle one for a forest park area that purifies the air, and the upper one for permanent use. residence of people, which has a residential function and serves to house administrative and sociocultural buildings and structures. The total area of ​​the city will be 3 million square meters, and up to 10,000 people will be able to live here - tourists, service personnel and farm workers."

October 10th, 2012

In 2008, the underground mine put into operation a skip shaft complex, skip hoisting machines, two 7-cubic-meter skips, as well as a cage for transporting people and lowering goods. From February to August 2008, commissioning work was completed on the main fan installation, which performs the most important function - providing ventilation of underground mine workings. At the end of December 2008, the mining and capital works section No. 8, headed by A. Velichko and foreman A. Ozol, carried out a conveyor crosscut and reached the diamond pipe. The author of these lines, under the thickness of the earth 650 meters, 150 meters from the bottom of the famous MIR quarry at horizon 310, was able to touch the treasured ore body. In 2009, the mine builders achieved a serious task - connecting between the -210m and -310m horizons, which made it possible to deliver cargo to all layered runs of the first operational block of the subway. Secondly, it ensures reliable ventilation of the mine. By the way, it must be said that the first production block was promptly prepared for mining operations or, at the miner's term, the mining operation. In March 2009, an important operation was completed - the sliding of the above-mine structure to accommodate a lifting unit, the function of which is to lower workers to underground levels, deliver materials, equipment, and also issue rock. And in the spring of 2009, commissioning work began. The Mir mine was commissioned in 2009.

August 21, 2009 will be remembered as a significant date in the modern history of diamond mining: Mirny pompously celebrated the launch of the first stage of the MIR underground mine. This is the crown of many years of work, significantly strengthening the position of AK ALROSA in all aspects. The MIR underground mine has become a powerful production unit of ALROSA, capable of producing 1 million tons of diamond ore. Now it’s time to complete the construction of the stowage complex. Much will depend on the progress of its construction and equipping.

—> Satellite images (Google Maps) <—

sources
http://sakhachudo.narod.ru
http://gorodmirny.ru

Eagle Stone

There is not even a hint of truth in this legend. Scree diamonds rarely have sharp edges capable of cutting glass. Despite its hardness, diamond is not strong enough to survive a fall from a great height without harm. And most importantly: the legend does not answer the question, where does the eagle get diamonds? After all, not every mountain contains scatterings of precious stones...

Where do diamonds come from?

In an effort to get to the natural deposits of the luminiferous mineral, people have undertaken real excavations more than once or twice in search of diamond veins. However, shoveling the soil of diamond-bearing river sediments yielded modest carats per cubic meter of waste rock, and did not help in any way answer the question: where do diamonds come from?

Yellow Diamonds of the Orange River

Soon the field was seething with life. Tens of thousands of amateur miners dug a quarry, reseeded the soil, and handed over the found crystals to buyers. The revival of business activity attracted the attention of the authorities: in 1873, the Earl of Kimberley declared the diamond-bearing lands the property of the British crown, and bestowed his name on the mining village.

Rocks that contained diamonds were called kimberlite, and geological formations that gave the world deposits of sparkling natural stone were called kimberlite pipes.

Glass shaped

Kimberlite, the rock that fills this giant well, consists of varying-scale fragments of locally occurring minerals, unevenly distributed in the highly alkaline environment raised from the deep bowels of the planet.

Olivine, the transparent variety of which is called chrysotile and is a gemstone, is the most voluminous component of kimberlite. Fiery red garnets and layered phlogopites are crystals that are necessarily present in kimberlite massifs.

The kimberlite itself is dark, almost black, and has a pronounced blue or green tint. The crystals of transparent carbon contained in it have a regular diamond-shaped shape and look fresh and new - which sharply contradicts the theories of the genesis of diamonds that were established in the last century...

Where does the kimberlite pipe lead?

Until recently, hypotheses reigned about the formation of a precious mineral at depths from 150 to 600 kilometers. Theoretically, it is there that the temperature and pressure correspond to the parameters of carbon crystallization. However, these theories have little evidence, but their refutations are significant.

Mysteries of kimberlites

Volcanoes “let off steam” where it is easiest for molten rocks to make their way up from the depths: in the transition zones around continental plates, the oceanic crust is both thin (about ten kilometers) and cracked. How does the liquid substance of the mantle manage to break through the most durable layers of the earth's crust and form a kimberlite pipe?

On all continents of the Earth, kimberlite pipes “pierce” - like a nail on a board - the strongest crystalline shields - and often freeze before reaching the surface of several hundred or even tens of meters of loose sedimentary rocks. Why? There is no clear answer.

When talking about kimberlite pipes, geologists use the concept of a volumetric trace of an explosive process. Meanwhile, an explosion - that is, an avalanche-like rapid release of energy - gives completely different consequences. The explosion chamber formed in rocks tends to be spherical - but not a single kimberlite pipe has even a relative similarity to spheroids. This means that the perforation of the earth’s crust during the formation of the kimberlite pipe did not have an explosive nature? How did it go?

It turns out that a kimberlite pipe is a “factory” for the production of diamonds?

Gas needles and hot spots

In approximately the same way, according to Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Professor Alexander Portnov, the formation of a kimberlite pipe occurs. Gas (mainly hydrogen-methane) bubbles collecting in the upper layers of the mantle play the main role in the genesis of kimberlite pipes.

The conditions created in the place where the crystalline continental shield is supported by an accumulation of gas are quite sufficient for the formation of a needle-thin (on a planetary scale) puncture, which makes it possible for mantle gases to rise to the surface of the earth's solid surface.

The pressure of many tens of thousands of atmospheres inherent in such gas accumulations is capable of destroying and pushing apart stone monoliths - at least in some areas. Perforation does not occur instantly: the interaction of compressed superheated gas and the rocks of the continental platform is long-term, and for a successful breakthrough of the hydrogen-methane mixture a combination of several circumstances is required - otherwise the bubble, having wasted energy, can hang in the depths of the bowels as a slowly cooling gas lens.

In the Earth's lithosphere there are so-called “hot spots” - areas of convection transfer of thermal energy from many hundreds of kilometers of planetary depths to the surface layers. The same processes also occur in a heated liquid - so the presence of a convective thermal “fountain” in the semi-liquid body mass of our planet can be likened to streams of hot water in a boiling kettle.

The difference, however, is that the surface of the water in the kettle is free, and the liquefied substance of the mantle is covered with a thick layer of rock “ice” on top. But the intensity of heat generation at convection points is such that the energy imparted to the solid crust is sufficient to soften it.

Such “springs” of intraplanetary heat flow for several tens of millions of years. And if the relatively thin oceanic crust is melted right through, then the several times thicker continental crust only partially loses its strength under the influence of heat - but does not lose its integrity. Until a gas bubble appears at the place where it is heated...

Gas needle pierces stone

However, closer to the surface, at a depth of several tens or hundreds of meters, the already significantly weakened in strength, but still voluminous and hot gas flow encounters a zone that resembles (in relation to a crystalline monolith of the continental shield) a porous sponge. Without encountering resistance, the mantle gas expands, “blows through” crushed rocks over a vast area around the upper edge of the kimberlite glass - and dissolves in the planet’s atmosphere.

Traces of such interaction are clearly visible. At a distance of up to half a kilometer from a kimberlite pipe, crystalline minerals undergo changes in chemical composition. As a result, they develop (or are greatly enhanced) natural luminescence.

Apatite, which usually glows yellow in ultraviolet light, acquires a blue glow - and this property is characteristic only of apatites found near a kimberlite pipe. Zircon, which rarely exhibits the ability to luminesce, begins to glow clearly and brightly after contact with mantle gases.

And although the colors of gemstones remain unchanged with increased luminescence, the increase in their brightness in daylight and artificial light does not go unnoticed. Jewelry inserts made from such minerals are more expensive.

The ability to re-emit light also increases in other crystalline minerals located near the upper head of the kimberlite pipe. This phenomenon is explained by the chemical activity of mantle gas and the presence in its composition of such metals as europium, zirconium, and cerium. It is they, being introduced into the structure of crystalline formations, that make dull natural stones glow under the rays of the sun.

But where do diamonds come from in kimberlite?

Moreover: on the surface of the stones that underwent a monstrous transfer from the hellish depths to the level of sedimentary rocks, characteristic traces are observed. Heated gas flows melt and deform the surface layers of the crystals, and they become covered with specific folds. This kind of “shagreen” is typical of meteorites and turbine blades.

Diamonds, on the other hand, do not bear any traces of external influence - although moving, for example, along with river pebbles, they roll around, losing their natural rhomboid shape. This means that the perfect shape of diamond crystals confirms the hypothesis about their formation directly in the body of a kimberlite pipe!

But how does it all happen? According to geologists. Meanwhile, in the mantle of the planet, graphite has nowhere to come from and is “forbidden” to be present: at such temperatures and pressures, carbon is unstable and cannot take the form of graphite.

Scientists simply forgot that more than half a century ago, successful experiments were carried out in the Soviet Union on the low-temperature synthesis of diamond from methane. Which simply confirms the possibility of diamond formation in a gaseous fluid rising from the mantle to the surface of the planet.

In the process of decreasing gas pressure as it rises to the surface, conditions arise in the forming kimberlite pipe for the “adjacent” of free valence bonds of a carbon atom to other similar atoms. This is how giant carbon molecules are formed, consisting of countless atoms and which we identify as diamonds.

However, conditions favorable for diamond synthesis do not always arise. This is why only 5-10% of kimberlite pipes contain crystalline carbon.

Additional confirmation of this theory comes from studies of the age of minerals found in kimberlite. The age of that famous pipe near the city of Kimberley is 85 million years. And the garnets (pyropes) found in it were formed more than three billion years ago! The Udachnaya pipe (Yakutia) is 425 million years old. Clinopyroxene, which is part of the Udna kimberlite, is one billion one hundred and forty-nine million years old. However, the age of the Yakut diamonds exactly matches the ages of the “parent” pipes...

There is a lot of other evidence indicating the simultaneous formation of diamonds and kimberlites filling bottomless “wells”. So there is hope for our planet to have a mythical diamond-bearing layer at great depths - at least

These elegant, outwardly fragile, incredibly beautiful stones with the ability to reflect and refract rays, scattering magical sparks of light around them, were once thrown through volcanic vents onto the surface of planet Earth. In our time, these volcanoes have long been extinct, their above-ground part as a result of erosion processes has disappeared without a trace, but the rocks, stones and other substances frozen in the crater have not disappeared anywhere.

Scientists learned that these vents contain a huge amount of diamonds only in the middle of the last century, when a huge diamond deposit, nicknamed the kimberlite pipe, was found on the territory of the African continent (it was later discovered that such natural formations contain about 90% of natural diamond reserves planets).

People could not ignore such an event - and active searches for such deposits began all over the world. Some countries, such as Botswana, Russia, Canada, South Africa, Angola, were lucky, and having discovered the desired rock, they almost immediately began to develop promising finds, digging a deep hole and creating a huge crater.

Subsequently, scientists noticed an interesting feature of such holes: it is extremely dangerous for helicopters and other aircraft to fly over man-made craters, since the huge hole literally sucks them into itself.

Education

As for the process of formation of a kimberlite pipe and diamonds in it, it looks quite interesting. Several billion years ago, a breakthrough of magmatic solutions and gases occurred in the bowels of the earth (and it is interesting that it did not happen in a thin place in the earth’s crust, the thickness of which is about 10 km, but the explosion pierced a powerful platform 40 km thick).

As a result, a conical-shaped channel appeared, more similar to a champagne glass: the deeper it goes underground, the narrower it becomes and at a certain depth it turns into a vein.

The crater opening of this channel is usually from five hundred meters to one and a half kilometers. After the eruption, breccias (volcanic fragments) and gray-green tuff, the so-called kimberlite, were frozen in the crater of this crater - a rock consisting of phlogopite, garnet, olivine, carbonates and other minerals.

When these minerals reach the earth's surface by other means, their form is always well-cut crystals. But in the composition of kimberlite there are no such faces, and the grains are round in shape. As for diamonds, they appear on the surface in a ready-made form with sharp edges that can be used to cut glass without processing.

Despite the fact that a kimberlite pipe is usually 10% filled with gems, extracting diamonds from the rock is a rather labor-intensive process, since only about 1 carat of gems, which is 0.2 g, is extracted from one ton of kimberlite.

The first kimberlite pipe, called the “Big Hole,” was found in the mid-19th century. in South Africa, in the Kimberley province (where the name of both the diamond-containing rock and the vent itself came from). This deposit is also the largest quarry that was created by people without the use of any technology.

To create a hole of such a scale in the earth's crust, more than 50 thousand miners were involved, who developed the quarry using shovels and picks. As a result, over fifty years, more than 22 million tons of soil were extracted from the bowels of the earth and more than 2.7 thousand kg of diamonds (about 14.5 million carats) were extracted.

Despite the fact that at the moment the “Big Hole” deposit has completely exhausted itself, the diamond quarry still remains a local attraction, since for more than a century it has held the glory of the largest man-made hole in our world: its area is about 17 hectares, along the perimeter the hole has 1 .6 km, and the width is 463 m.

As for the depth, at present it is not very great, but previously it went down to 240 m. When diamond mining stopped, the deposit was filled up to 215 m, after which underground streams filled the bottom of the quarry with water and created a lake. Currently the hole is 40 m deep.

Quarry "Mir"

In the middle of the last century, on the territory of Yakutia in Russia, geologists found several kimberlite pipes at once - the first was “Zarnitsa”, discovered in 1954. Few gems were found in it, but the discovery of this vent prompted geologists to continue the search work.

And as it turned out, not in vain: the very next year, one of the largest diamond deposits of our planet called “Mir” was discovered in these parts (on the map you can find it near the city of Mirny at the following coordinates: 62°31'42″N. latitude 113°59'39″E). It is noteworthy that it was here that the largest gem in Russia, called “XXVI Congress of the CPSU,” weighing 342.5 carats (that’s a little more than 68 grams) was found.

The country's authorities paid great attention to the development of this Mir kimberlite pipe, attracted a huge number of people - and after some time, first a village was built among the wild and uninhabited region, and then the city of Mirny, located more than a thousand kilometers from Yakutsk. The settlement was immediately placed so that the kimberlite pipe was right next to Mirny.

Work on the development of the Mir deposit in permafrost conditions (in winter the temperature here is often -60°C) was extremely difficult - it was very difficult to work with the earth and the soil had to be undermined with dynamite. Within a few years, the quarry produced about 2 kg of diamonds per year, of which 20% had jewelry value, and the rest were used for industrial purposes.

At the moment, it is believed that the Mir quarry produces the largest amount of diamonds in Russia and a quarter of all diamonds on our planet (and this, despite the fact that in size it is still somewhat inferior to another similar deposit found in these parts - the kimberlite pipe “Udachnaya”): its diameter is 1.2 km, and its depth is 525 m.

Several years ago, diamond mining in the quarry was stopped after the depth of the hole reached critical dimensions, and all work moved to the Mir underground mine. Working underground is difficult in itself, and in this case it is further complicated by the fact that underground water constantly floods the mine, as a result of which it has to be constantly pumped out and directed into natural faults that were found in the earth's crust.

Work in the Mir kimberlite pipe is not going to be stopped in the near future, since geologists have discovered that a huge amount of diamonds lie at a depth of more than one kilometer, and therefore the Mir deposit can be developed for more than thirty years.

Quarry "Udachnaya"

The largest kimberlite pipe in Russia is also located in Yakutia, 20 km from the Arctic Circle (on the map it can be found at the following coordinates: 66°25′ N 112°19′ E). Its parameters are:

• Width – 2 thousand m;
• Length – 1.6 thousand m;
• Depth – 530 m.

This hole actually consists of two pipes adjacent to each other - Western and Eastern. In terms of their characteristics, gems from different vents are quite different from each other.

Despite the fact that this diamond quarry was opened in the mid-50s, it began to be actively developed only in the early eighties. Currently, gems are mined in an open-pit manner, but since the depth of the deposit has become critical for this type of mining, an underground mine has recently begun operating here.

Experts say that most of the diamonds from the Udachnaya Kimberlite pipe have already been removed from the bowels of the earth, and some of the finds are amazing. For example, a stone was recently found here containing about 30 thousand diamonds, which is a million times higher than their usual concentration.

Near the city of Mirny, in the Yakut region of permafrost, on the left bank of the middle reaches of the Irel River, there is the largest diamond quarry in the world, which is called the Mir kimberlite pipe.

Today, the diamond mining quarry in Yakutia has the following impressive parameters:

1. Its depth is 525 meters.
2. The volume of ore extracted from the quarry is 165 million cubic meters.
3. The bottom diameter is 160-310 meters.
4. The diameter along the outer ring is 1.2 kilometers.
5. The depth that has been explored is up to 1200 meters.

At first glance, one of the largest diamond quarries in the world is impressive in its scope and amazes the imagination. The formation of a kimberlite pipe is a consequence of a volcanic eruption, when gases under enormous temperature and high pressure through the earth’s crust burst out from the bowels of the earth. A volcanic explosion brings to the surface of the Earth a rock containing diamonds - kimberlite.

The tube is shaped like a glass and looks like a funnel of enormous proportions. The breed bears the same name as the city of Kimberley, located in South Africa, where a diamond weighing 85 carats was found in 1871. The found 16.7 gram “pebble” gave rise to the Diamond Fever.

History of the Mir kimberlite pipe

Even at the beginning of the 19th century, rumors began to arise about the presence of precious stones in the territory of Yakutia and the western lands bordering it. After the Civil War, teacher Pyotr Starovatov got into a conversation in Kempendai with an old man who told him about his discovery a couple of years ago in one of the local rivers - it was a sparkling pebble the size of a pinhead. He sold the find to a merchant for two bottles of vodka, a bag of cereal and five bags of tea. After a while, another person said that he also found precious stones on the banks of the Kempendyayk and Chona rivers. But it was only in 1947-1948 that targeted searches for diamonds began for the first time on the territory of the Siberian Platform. In the fall of 1948, a group of geologists led by G. Fanstein launched prospecting work on the Vilyui and Chona rivers, and on August 7, 1949, the group found the first diamond on the Sokolina sand spit, and subsequently a diamond placer was discovered here. Exploration work in 1950-1953 was also successful - several diamond placers were discovered, and on August 21, 1954, the first kimberlite pipe in the Soviet Union, called Zarnitsa, was discovered.

Soon, on June 13, 1955, the geological party saw a tall larch with exposed roots, where the fox had dug a deep hole. The bluish color of the earth suggested that it was kimberlite. This is how a team of geologists discovered a diamond pipe that turned out to be the largest in the world and with the richest content. The following telegram was sent to the authorities: “We lit the peace pipe, the tobacco is excellent.” Through this classified radiogram, Soviet geologists reported to the capital about the discovery of the Mir kimberlite diamond pipe. The phrase excellent tobacco meant that it contained a large amount of diamonds.

This find was extremely important for the USSR, since after the start of industrialization, the country experienced an acute shortage of industrial diamonds. It was believed that the use of diamond tools doubled the economic potential of the country, and soon the village of “Mirny” arose, where convoys moved along off-road roads, covering 2800 km of road. By the early 1960s, the USSR was already busy mining diamonds worth $1 billion a year, and the village of Mirny became the center of the Soviet diamond mining industry, today home to 40,000 people.

The richest diamond mine in the world

The deposit was developed in extremely difficult climatic conditions, and in order to break deep into the permafrost, the ground had to be blasted using dynamite. Already in 1960, the annual diamond production was 2 kilograms, and 1/5 of them were of jewelry quality.

Diamonds, after appropriate cutting, turned into amazingly beautiful diamonds that were used to create jewelry. Soviet citizens planning to get married could afford to buy exquisite diamond engagement rings, in which diamonds were mined from the Yakut Mir kimberlite pipe. The remaining 80% of mined diamonds are used for industrial purposes, since according to the Mohs scale of reference minerals of hardness it is the hardest mineral in the world, with the highest thermal conductivity, dispersion and refraction.

The South African company De Beers was most concerned about the active development of the Mir kimberlite pipe, which was forced to buy Soviet-made diamonds in order to control prices on the world market. The top officials of the company, after negotiations with the Soviet leadership, agreed on the arrival of the delegation for their part in the village of Mirny. A positive answer was given, but with one condition - the delegation from the USSR, in turn, would visit diamond quarries in South Africa.

A delegation of the South African company arrived in Moscow in 1776 with the aim of further flight to the village of Mirny, but it was deliberately delayed, arranging endless meetings and banquets. When the delegation finally arrived in Yakutia to inspect the Mir kimberlite pipe, they only had 20 minutes left to inspect it. Despite this, De Beers specialists were greatly impressed by the scope of what they saw, and were surprised that Soviet specialists did not use water when processing the ore. Considering that the temperature in this region has been below freezing for 7 months, it is simply impossible to do this.

Today, the city of Mirny has turned from a small tent settlement into a modern industrial city, where there are asphalt roads, developed infrastructure and high-rise nine-story buildings. There is an airport, two diamond processing factories, a city park, bars, restaurants, an art gallery, swimming pools, a stadium, 3 libraries, an art school, a modern Palace of Culture and a 4-story hotel. For a provincial town there is quite a high intellectual potential here. The Yakutniproalmaz Research Institute has been operating here for many years and the Polytechnic Institute is open to applicants.

During the 44 years of operation of the Mir quarry (from 1957 to 2001), diamonds worth $17 billion were mined here. The scale of the quarry increased to such latitudes that trucks had to travel almost 8 km along a spiral road in order to rise to the surface from the bottom of the quarry.

Today the diamond quarry is owned by the Russian company ALROSA, which in 2001 stopped mining ore in the Mir quarry using open-pit technology. The main reason is low efficiency and danger.

Research by scientists has shown that diamonds lie at a depth of more than 1000 meters, and in order to establish effective mining, not a quarry is needed, but an underground mine. The planned capacity of such a mine will be about a million tons of ore annually. The total period planned for development of the field is 34 years.

Interesting facts about the kimberlite pipe

1. Helicopters are strictly prohibited from flying over the deep quarry. The reason is as follows - a huge funnel causes air turbulence in which aircraft cannot maneuver safely.
2. The walls of the quarry are incredibly high, and they contain danger not only for helicopters. There is an increased risk of landslides here.

According to rumors, local residents are afraid that one day a huge quarry could absorb the adjacent territories, including those that are built up for human habitation, but these are just urban legends in the village of Mirny.

Ecological city of the future on the site of a former diamond mine

Today, the empty huge pit is of interest to scientists, and ideas are already emerging to create an eco-city in this funnel. The head of the Moscow architectural bureau Nikolai Lyutomsky shared his plans for an incredible solution. “The main part of the project is a concrete structure of enormous scale, which will act as a kind of plug, bursting the quarry from the inside. A dome transparent to light will cover the top of the foundation pit, and it is planned to install solar panels on it.

Despite the harsh climate of Yakutia, there are quite a lot of clear days a year, and the batteries can generate about 200 MW of electricity. It will be enough to meet the needs of the future city. In addition, you can use the heat of the Earth, and if in winter the air temperature is minus 60 degrees Celsius, then the soil temperature at a depth below 150 meters will be positive (below permafrost). This fact adds energy efficiency to the future project. The city is planned to be divided into three parts:

1. Upper will be used for permanent residence of people. It will contain residential buildings, buildings and structures of socio-cultural and administrative significance;
2. Middle tier- an area where there will be a forest and a park area designed to purify the air in the city;
3. Lower tier will be a so-called vertical farm - agricultural products will be grown here to meet the needs of the city.

The total planned area of ​​the project is 3 million square meters. The city will be able to accommodate up to 10,000 tourists, farm employees and service personnel.

On August 21, 2009, a new significant date in the history of diamond mining, the Mir underground mine was launched in Mirny. This is the apogee of many years of work of thousands of people, a powerful production unit of AK ALROSA, which allows the extraction of about 1 million tons of ore containing diamonds. In recent years, Russia has confidently held the palm in diamond mining, thanks to the ALROSA company. During the year, diamonds worth $1.7 billion were exported, most of them to European countries.