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QUICK FACTS
Identify: Argyle diamond mine
Location: East Kimberley, Western Australia
Coordinates: -16.719356354801818, 128.38492713535314
Why it is unimaginable: The now-closed mine is the supply of 90% of pink diamonds on Earth.
The Argyle mine held the largest cache of pink diamonds ever found on Earth. Not like blue and yellow diamonds, that are tinted by impurities like nitrogen and boron, pink diamonds get their coloration by way of geological processes that distort their crystalline construction. Pink diamonds are extraordinarily uncommon and might fetch greater than $2 million per carat (1 carat is the same as 0.2 grams, or 0.007 ounces), in line with the International Gem Society.
The Argyle mine closed in 2020 as a result of a dwindling provide of diamonds and unfavorable economic conditions, together with an increase in operational prices. The mine sits on the shores of Lake Argyle in a distant area of northeast Western Australia, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Darwin. Mining operations there lasted 37 years and yielded greater than 865 million carats (191 tons, or 172 metric tons) of tough diamonds — together with white, blue, violet, pink and purple diamonds, in line with Rio Tinto, the corporate that owned and operated the mine.
Associated: Fountains of diamonds that erupt from Earth’s center are revealing the lost history of supercontinents
The Argyle rock formation is an uncommon spot for diamonds, as a result of it sits on the sting of a continent somewhat than within the center, the place the dear stones usually emerge. As well as, diamonds are normally present in kimberlite rock formations, however the Argyle formation incorporates a kind of volcanic rock referred to as olivine lamproite.
Researchers dated the rocks at Argyle shortly after the positioning was found in 1979. Initial results pinned their age someplace between 1.1 and 1.2 billion years outdated, however final 12 months, a brand new examine revealed the rocks are 1.3 billion years old. This places the Argyle formation’s origins proper in the beginning of the breakup of the supercontinent Nuna, revealing clues about how the diamonds shaped — and why so lots of them are pink.
Pink diamonds are born out of particular warmth and strain situations that come up when tectonic plates collide. The sheer power of those collisions can bend the crystal lattice of pre-existing diamonds in a way that colors them different shades of pink — though an excessive amount of power can flip them brown, Hugo Olierook, a senior analysis fellow at Curtin College in Australia and lead writer of the 2023 examine, beforehand informed Stay Science.
The supercontinent Nuna shaped when two sections of Earth’s crust crashed into one another round 1.8 billion years in the past. The area wherein they’re thought to have smashed collectively overlaps with the present-day Argyle formation, suggesting the collision gave rise to Argyle’s pink diamonds. At that time limit, nevertheless, the diamonds would have been buried deep throughout the crust.
However 500 million years later, when Nuna started to interrupt aside because the tectonic plates moved away from each other, the rocks carrying the diamonds rose to Earth’s surface. These rocks additionally contained an abundance of brown diamonds, which Rio Tinto mined and sold in huge numbers.
Argyle is an distinctive spot, and whereas it is attainable there may be one other such cache of diamonds someplace, discovering it can “take plenty of luck,” Olierook mentioned.
