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Diamond Mining
How it works: The "open-pit’s" hard ore material is removed with large hydraulic shovels and ore trucks. Hard rock is drilled and blasted with explosives so the broken material can be removed. In bedrock adjacent to the pipe, shafts are sunk and tunneled into the pipe. Concrete-lined tunnels are excavated under a large vertical section, 400 to 600 feet of kimberlite. Along the tunnels are openings in the concrete casing. Broken kimberlite falls through the draw points and is scraped out of the tunnel with a drag or scraper bucket attached to a cable. The scraped kimberlite rubble is loaded into cars on a lower level and moved to a crusher underground. The crushed ore is then conveyed to skips that carry the ore up the vertical shaft for processing. Tourist Diamond Miners: If you are a fortune seeker or tired of playing the lottery, you and the entire family can hunt for loose diamonds (and keep what you find!) at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro Arkansas. Before the site became a state park, it was a farm belonging to John Huddleston. After Huddleston found two diamonds after tilling the ground over 90 years ago, people all over caught "diamond fever" and continue to pull in over 60,000 people per year. Are there any diamonds left? Park rangers say on average two diamonds the size of a match head are found each day! Visitors can take their new finds to the visitors center in the park where analysts will weigh it for free.
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