OUR BIG TRIP

MARY & OLI GOING AROUND AUSTRALIA
KIMBERLEY - Page 7

19 August 2007, Sunday

Continuation of the Bungle Bungle and Argyle Mine...
The Argyle Diamond Mine from the air - a huge pit - the AK1 mine pit. The grey stuff on the right is the Lamproite pipe which they are
still mining in the pit. They can not go much deeper without starting from the the top again, so they went to underground mining last
year.
Read - Diamonds are forever but safety is
gold ... as always in mining companies.
The big water trucks to keep the dust
down. This one is in the washing pit - this
is actually the spot where they found the
biggest diamond from the mine which
came from the tyre of one of the trucks
when washed. The diamond is shown
later.
We are approaching the largest private
airstrip in the Southern Hemisphere. That
all belongs to Rio Tinto today. They did
two mistakes when building the airstrip -
too much crosswind because they build it
in the wrong direction and they build it
on a diamond reserve worth more than
$400 Mill. - stupid!!!
Loaders working at the bottom of the
mine. On the right you can see little dots
- a new field which will be blasted soon.
A drill rig on the left - you can see the
little holes on the right - working again
on a new blasting field.
The point from which we could view the
AK1 open pit. not bad... The only thing
you can not really understand and see is
the large dimensions - 2 km long - 1 km
wide and 900 m deep.
A Loader scoop takes 40 t at once. - 6
scoops to fill the bigger trucks.
In the background the
loader - in the foreground
a drill and a 1 tonne piece
of Lamproite with a hole in
it. By the way - you are not
allowed to pick up anything
from the ground here...
Landslides happen during the wet
season - this one required a new road to
be build. The mine actually works 365
days - 24 hours a day - wow.
The control room - the entire plant is
controlled from here. Not many other
people used in the crushers and
machinery unless maintenance is going
on. Below the most interesting little
graphic on the screens - shows that a
truck is dumping its load.
A drill only lasts one 12 hour shift - this
one is gone.
The high security area - after the
diamonds have been separated
from the Lamproite they are
sorted and checked here. All
workers here have one security
gard with them for 12 hours -
anything you do is with your
security guard - yes also the loo is
covered. Also, they get a new gard
every 2 weeks so they do not
become friends...
The most expensive little
stone we found in the
gallery. The four C's define
the fifth C - Cost.
C = Colour
C = Cut
C = Carat
C = Clarity
$28,000 for 0.42 carat must
mean this one is flawless.
The largest diamond ever
found in the mine - 42.6 carat.
Can you see the little diamonds sticking
out of the rock - they identify them with
x-rays which makes them glow in the dark
and a computer is blowing them out of the
process and collects them - must be
amazing how they do it - but you can not
see that part of the process.
Leaving the airstrip again and heading
back to Kununurra.
On the left you see how the diamonds
come out of the main process. Covered
still by Lamproite dirt. They use
Hydrochloric acid to wash them to get the
examples on the right.
All the different colours they find in the
area. Amazing - luckily, Mary does not like
the pink ones which are the most
expensive of the stones.