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In 1908, railway worker Zacharias Lewala was
shovelling sand off a railway line in Kolmanskop,
a few kilometres inland from the port of Lüderitz
in Namibia, and picked up several stones, thereby
unknowingly starting a diamond rush in Namibia.
But how did this whole coastline along southwest
Africa come to be strewn with diamonds?
It’s another quirk of nature. Millions of years ago,
glacial floods carried diamonds down the Orange
River from some 500 miles inland and out to sea.
Over millennia, the diamonds tumbled along the
riverbed, in the process being naturally cleaned and
polished, and arrived on the seabed in near-perfect
form, making them amongst the most sought after
treasures of nature.
It has taken a massive investment in new offshore
mining technology by De Beers to enable these
diamonds to be brought to the surface. Unaffected
by the wild crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean,
the Debmarine Namibia mining fleet is a triumph
of engineering ingenuity.
A gigantic crawler – like a monster vacuum – ploughs
along the seabed sucking up the diamond-rich
sediment and pumping it up to the ship (which is
essentially a floating mine) on the surface. The ‘mv
Mafuta’ is the latest of Debmarine Namibia’s five
deep sea mining vessels.
At a cost of more than US$100 million, it is the largest
and most sophisticated of Debmarine Namibia’s
fleet. The ship is automatically kept in position
by a GPS that moves both ship and crawler along
predetermined tracks to comb the seabed areas
that geologists determine are most likely to yield the
largest number of high-quality gems. Four hundred
tonnes of sediment are pumped aboard every hour.
The sediment enters an unceasing production line
where it is automatically sized and separated, and
the diamonds sealed in cans, a complex process
untouched by human hands.
A GIGANTIC CRAWLER – LIKE A MONSTER VACUUM – PLOUGHS ALONG THE
SEABED SUCKING UP THE DIAMOND-RICH SEDIMENT AND PUMPING IT UP TO
THE SHIP (WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY A FLOATING MINE) ON THE SURFACE
Once the diamonds are extracted, the sediment is
returned to the seabed to minimise environmental
damage. Once a month, when the crew of the
vessel change over amid the strictest security, the
diamonds are brought ashore by helicopter before
being transported to the sort house and eventually
beginning the long journey to diamond jewellery
retail stores all over the world.
TREASURES
OF THE DE EP