Kimberlite pipe

Ore deposit

A carrot-shaped vertical column of kimberlite, blasted up through the crust from the deep mantle by a violent gas-rich eruption, carrying diamonds and mantle rock to the surface.

Rocks

Kimberlite, Peridotite

Minerals

Diamond, Olivine, Pyrope, Ilmenite, Diopside, Phlogopite, Garnet

Worked

Since the industrial age

Examples

Kimberley Mine (the Big Hole), South Africa, dug after 1869; Mir mine, Sakha Republic, Russia, open pit from 1957

Sources

• Kimberlite. Wikipedia.
• Kimberley Mine. Wikipedia.
• Mir mine. Wikipedia.

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