Kimberley Diamond Fields
The Argyle Diamond Mine was a diamond mine located in the East Kimberley region in the remote north of Western Australia. Argyle was at times the largest diamond producer in the world by volume (14 million carats in 2018), although the proportion of gem-quality diamonds was low. It was the only known significant source of pink and red diamonds (producing over 90% of the world's supply), and additionally provided a large proportion of other naturally coloured diamonds, including champagne, cognac and rare blue diamonds. Mining operations ceased in November 2020, after 37 years of operations and producing more than 865 million carats of rough diamonds. Mine operator Rio Tinto planning to decommission the mine and rehabilitate the site at least through 2025. The Argyle diamond mine is also notable for being the first successful commercial diamond mine exploiting a volcanic pipe of lamproite, rather than the more usual kimberlite pipe; much earlier attempts to mine diamonds f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lake Argyle
Lake Argyle is Western Australia's largest and Australia's second largest freshwater man-made reservoir by volume. The reservoir is part of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme and is located near the East Kimberley town of Kununurra. The lake flooded large parts of the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley on the Kimberley Plateau about inland from the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, close to the border with the Northern Territory. The primary inflow is the Ord River, while the Bow River and many other smaller creeks also flow into the dam. The lake is a DIWA-listed wetland. Lake Argyle and Lake Kununurra were listed in 1990 as Ramsar Convention protected wetlands. History and construction The construction of the Ord River Dam was completed in 1971 by Dravo Corporation. The dam was officially opened the following year. The dam wall is long, and high. The earth-fill only dam wall at Lake Argyle is the most efficient dam in Australia in terms of the ratio of the size of the dam wall to th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage language, a Dhegiha Siouan language, and referred to their relatives, the Quapaw people. The state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta. Arkansas is the 29th largest by area and the 34th most populous state, with a population of just over 3 million at the 2020 census. The capital and most populous city is Little Rock, in the central part of the state, a hub for transportation, business, culture, and government. The northwestern corner of the state, including the Fayetteville–Springdaleâ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alluvium
Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is typically geologically young and is not consolidated into solid rock. Sediments deposited underwater, in seas, estuaries, lakes, or ponds, are not described as alluvium. Floodplain alluvium can be highly fertile, and supported some of the earliest human civilizations. Definitions The present consensus is that "alluvium" refers to loose sediments of all types deposited by running water in floodplains or in alluvial fans or related landforms. However, the meaning of the term has varied considerably since it was first defined in the French dictionary of Antoine Furetière, posthumously published in 1690. Drawing upon concepts from Roman law, Furetière defined ''alluvion'' (the F ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Floodplain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudie, A. S., 2004, ''Encyclopedia of Geomorphology'', vol. 1. Routledge, New York. The soils usually consist of clays, silts, sands, and gravels deposited during floods. Because the regular flooding of floodplains can deposit nutrients and water, floodplains frequently have high soil fertility; some important agricultural regions, such as the Mississippi river basin and the Nile, rely heavily on the flood plains. Agricultural regions as well as urban areas have developed near or on floodplains to take advantage of the rich soil and fresh water. However, the risk of flooding has led to increasing efforts to control flooding. Formation Most floodplains are formed by deposition on the inside of river meanders and by overbank flow. Whereve ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Maureen Muggeridge
Maureen Muggeridge (13 August 1948 – 7 October 2010) was a British geologist best known for discovering the Argyle diamond deposit in the north of Western Australia. Early life and education Muggeridge was born in Croydon; her father was Eric Muggeridge, the founder of the charity Plan International. She spent the majority of her childhood in Cameroon and was later sent back to England to a convent school in Sussex. Later, she became a day pupil at Brighton and Hove High School. Career After graduating in Geology from the University of St Andrews, she made her way to Perth, Western Australia, with support from her family. Within a week she got a job with a mining company called Tanganyika Holdings and was flying over the Outback searching for diamonds. Tanganyika Holdings was involved in a joint venture with other companies. In 1976, minerals were found which suggested the presence of diamonds. A joint venture was set up with CRA Exploration which they called the Ashton Joi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tanganyika Holdings
Tanganyika may refer to: Places * Tanganyika Territory (1916–1961), a former British territory which preceded the sovereign state * Tanganyika (1961–1964), a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania * Tanzania Mainland, the current area of the former country state and territory of Tanganyika * Lake Tanganyika, an African Great Lake * Tanganyika Province, a province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ** Tanganyika District, the former district of Katanga Province that is now the above province Other uses * Tanganyika (film), ''Tanganyika'' (film), a 1954 action adventure film * Tanganyika (album), ''Tanganyika'' (album), a 1956 album by Buddy Collette * HMS ''Tanganyika'', an See also * United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the predecessor of Tanzania * * Tanzania (other) {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Perth
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is part of the South West Land Division of Western Australia, with most of the metropolitan area on the Swan Coastal Plain between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp. The city has expanded outward from the original British settlements on the Swan River, upon which the city's central business district and port of Fremantle are situated. Perth is located on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, where Aboriginal Australians have lived for at least 45,000 years. Captain James Stirling founded Perth in 1829 as the administrative centre of the Swan River Colony. It was named after the city of Perth in Scotland, due to the influence of Stirling's patron Sir George Murray, who had connections with the area. It gained city statu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kununurra, Western Australia
Kununurra is a town in far northern Western Australia located at the eastern extremity of the Kimberley approximately from the border with the Northern Territory. Kununurra was initiated to service the Ord River Irrigation Scheme. Kununurra is the largest town in Western Australia north of Broome, with the closest town being Wyndham, away. Kununurra is from Perth via the Great Northern Highway. The town is situated in among the scenic hills and ranges of the far north-east Kimberley region, having an abundance of fresh water, conserved by the Ord River Diversion dam and the main Ord River Dam. The tropical agriculture crops grown in the Ord River Irrigation Area (ORIA) have changed over the years. Tourism and mining have also become important to the local economy. Characteristics Kununurra has a transient population; if itinerant residents, the outlying farm areas and communities were included in census population figures, it is estimated numbers would have exceeded ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin ( ; Larrakia: ) is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. With an estimated population of 147,255 as of 2019, the city contains the majority of the residents of the sparsely populated Northern Territory. It is the smallest, wettest, and most northerly of the Australian capital cities and serves as the Top End's regional centre. Darwin's proximity to Southeast Asia makes the city's location a key link between Australia and countries such as Indonesia and East Timor. The Stuart Highway begins in Darwin, extends southerly across central Australia through Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, concluding in Port Augusta, South Australia. The city is built upon a low bluff overlooking Darwin Harbour. Darwin's suburbs begin at Lee Point in the north and stretch to Berrimah in the east. The Stuart Highway extends to Darwin's eastern satellite city of Palmerston and its suburbs. The Darwin region, like much of the Top End, experiences a tropical climate with a wet a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lake Argyle, Western Australia
Lake Argyle is Western Australia's largest and Australia's second largest freshwater man-made reservoir by volume. The reservoir is part of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme and is located near the East Kimberley town of Kununurra. The lake flooded large parts of the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley on the Kimberley Plateau about inland from the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, close to the border with the Northern Territory. The primary inflow is the Ord River, while the Bow River and many other smaller creeks also flow into the dam. The lake is a DIWA-listed wetland. Lake Argyle and Lake Kununurra were listed in 1990 as Ramsar Convention protected wetlands. History and construction The construction of the Ord River Dam was completed in 1971 by Dravo Corporation. The dam was officially opened the following year. The dam wall is long, and high. The earth-fill only dam wall at Lake Argyle is the most efficient dam in Australia in terms of the ratio of the size of the dam wall to th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Regions Of Western Australia
Western Australia (WA) is divided into regions according to a number of systems. The most common system is the WA Government division of the state into regions for economic development purposes, which comprises nine defined regions; however, there are a number of other systems, including those made for purposes of land management (such as agriculture and conservation), information gathering (such as statistical and meteorological), and election for political office. The various different systems were defined for different purposes, and give specific boundaries, but although many of the different systems' regions have similar names, they have different boundaries; the names and boundaries of regions can and do vary between systems. The ''Regional Development Commissions Act'' regions The Western Australian system of regions defined by the Government of Western Australia for purposes of economic development administration, which excludes the Perth metropolitan region, is a s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Block Caving
Underground hard-rock mining refers to various underground mining techniques used to excavate "hard" minerals, usually those containing metals, such as ore containing gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, tin, and lead. It also involves the same techniques used to excavate ores of gems, such as diamonds and rubies. Soft-rock mining refers to the excavation of softer minerals, such as salt, coal, and oil sands. Mine access Underground access Accessing underground ore can be achieved via a decline (ramp), inclined vertical shaft or adit. *Declines can be a spiral tunnel which circles either the flank of the deposit or circles around the deposit. The decline begins with a box cut, which is the portal to the surface. Depending on the amount of overburden and quality of bedrock, a galvanized steel culvert may be required for safety purposes. They may also be started into the wall of an open cut mine. *Shafts are vertical excavations sunk adjacent to an ore body. Shafts are sun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |