The Diavik Diamond Mine is a

diamond Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, b ...

mine in the

North Slave Region The North Slave Region or ''Tłicho Region'' is one of five administrative regions in the Northwest Territories of Canada. It is the most populous of the five regions, with a population of almost 23,000. According to Municipal and Community Affai ...

of the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

, Canada, about northeast of

Yellowknife Yellowknife (; Dogrib: ) is the capital, largest community, and only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the ...

Description

Diavik Diamond Mine is an industrial complex set in a remote,

subarctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of humid continental regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and the Cairngorms. Genera ...

landscape. It consists of four kimberlite pipes associated with the Lac de Gras kimberlite field and is located on an island in Lac de Gras informally known as East Island. It is about south of the

Arctic Circle The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the most northerly of the five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth. Its southern equivalent is the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Circle marks the southernmost latitude at ...

. In the 2015 satellite image below, one can see the two main open pits, waste rock pile, and an airstrip capable of landing aircraft as large as 737s and C-130s. The complex also houses processing, power and boiler plants, fuel tanks, water and sewage processing facilities, maintenance shop, administrative buildings, and accommodations for workers. It is connected to points south by an

ice road An ice road or ice bridge is a human-made structure that runs on a frozen water surface (a river, a lake or a sea water expanse).Masterson, D. and Løset, S., 2011, ISO 19906: Bearing capacity of ice and ice roads, Proceedings of the 21st Inte ...

and Diavik Airport with a gravel runway regularly accommodating

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two u ...

jet aircraft.

Commercial importance

The mine is owned by a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

between the

Rio Tinto Group Rio Tinto Group is an Anglo-Australian multinational company that is the world's second-largest metals and mining corporation (behind BHP). The company was founded in 1873 when of a group of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tint ...

(60%) and Dominion Diamond Corporation (40%), and is operated by Yellowknife-based Diavik Diamond Mines Inc., a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Group. Commercial production commenced in 2003, and the lifespan of the mine is expected to be 16 to 22 years. It has become an important part of the regional economy, employing 1,000, and producing approximately 7 million carats () of diamonds annually.

History

The area was surveyed in 1992 and construction began in 2001, with production commencing in January 2003. In 2006, the ice road from

to the Diavik mine, and neighbouring mines, froze late and thawed early. The Diavik mine was unable to truck in all the supplies needed for the rest of 2006 before the road closed and arrangements had to be made to bring the remainder of the supplies in by air. Subsequent annual ice road resupply has been completed as planned. On July 5, 2007, a consortium of seven mining companies, including Rio Tinto, announced they are sponsoring environmental impact studies to construct a deep-water port in

Bathurst Inlet Bathurst Inlet, officially Kiluhiqtuq, is a deep inlet located along the northern coast of the Canadian mainland, at the east end of Coronation Gulf, into which the Burnside and Western rivers empty. The name, or its native equivalent ''Kingo ...

. Their plans include building a road connecting the port to their mines. The port would serve vessels of up to 25,000

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...

s. In March 2010, underground mining began at the mine. The transition from open pit to underground mining was completed in September 2012. In September 2012, Diavik completed construction of the Northwest Territories' first large scale

wind farm A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turb ...

. The four turbine, 9.2 megawatt facility provides 11 per cent (2015) of the Diavik mine's annual power needs and operates at 98% availability. Diesel fuel offset is about per year. Diavik operates the world's largest wind diesel hybrid power facility at its remote off-grid mine. The wind farm, operational down to , sets a new benchmark in cold climate renewable energy. In 2015, $US350 million was announced to fund development of a fourth kimberlite pipe ore body, known as A21. Construction of the A21 rockfill dike (like the other three ore bodies, A21 kimberlite pipe is under shallow waters of Lac de Gras) is expected to be complete in 2018 with first diamonds expected in the fall of that year. To build the dike, Diavik will use the same technologies as were used to build the A154 and A418 dikes. In December 2015, Rio Tinto announced discovery of the 187.7 carat Diavik Foxfire diamond, one of the largest rough gem quality diamonds ever produced in Canada. The Diavik Foxfire was bestowed an indigenous name, Noi?eh Kwe, which, in the Tlicho First Nation language means caribou crossing stone. In October 2018, a yellow diamond of 552 carat was found at the mine. This is the largest diamond ever found in North America.

References

External links

*{{Official, http://www.diavik.ca
1991 Discovery of Diamonds in the Northwest TerritoriesPhotos of Diavik Mine
at Google Images 2003 establishments in the Northwest Territories Diamond mines in Canada Diatremes of the Northwest Territories Mines in the Northwest Territories Open-pit mines Pre-Holocene volcanoes Rio Tinto (corporation) subsidiaries Surface mines in Canada

Description

Commercial importance

History

See also

References

External links