What is a mine world. Treasures of a kimberlite pipe. Brief history of mining

Now let's look at the creation of human hands.

Rumors about the presence of precious stones in the territory of Yakutia and the western lands bordering it began to appear at the beginning of the 19th century.

After civil war teacher Pyotr Starovatov met an old man in Kempendyai who said that two years ago he found a shiny stone the size of a match head on one of the local rivers and sold it to a merchant who gave him a bag of cereal, two bottles of vodka and five bags of tea for it . Later another man told him what he had found gems on the banks of the Chona and Kempendyayka rivers.

Targeted searches for diamonds on the territory of the Siberian Platform began for the first time in 1947-1948 along the Nizhnyaya and Podkamennaya Tunguska. In the fall of 1948, a group of geologists led by G. Fanstein began prospecting work on the Chona and Vilyui rivers, and on August 7, 1949, they found the first diamond on a sand spit called Sokolina, and further finds of more than 20 crystals revealed a diamond-bearing placer here. As a result of prospecting work in 1950-1953, several diamond-bearing placers were discovered in Yakutia.

In August 1953, geological party No. 132 of the Amakinsk expedition found the first diamond on the Malaya Botuobia River. On August 21 of the following year, 1954, geologist Larisa Popugaeva and worker Fyodor Belikov discovered the first kimberlite pipe in the USSR and named it “Zarnitsa”.

On June 3, 1955, a geological party with geologists Ekaterina Elagina, Yuri Khabardin, Viktor Avdeenko and several workers discovered a diamond-bearing pipe, which turned out to be the largest with the richest diamond content. They called it “Peace” and sent the following telegram to the authorities: “We lit the peace pipe, the tobacco is excellent...”.

Clickable 1920 px

In the same year, other diamond-bearing pipes were discovered in Yakutia, including Udachnaya, Marshrutnaya, and Sytykanskaya. 1955 was a very good year for geologists. 15 primary diamond deposits were discovered, as well as several industrial diamond placers. The search for diamonds continued, and by 1959, 120 were registered in Yakutia. kimberlite pipes.

The Mir pipe is located closer to the main transport artery of Yakutia - the Lena River than the Udachnaya, Sytykanskaya, and Zarnitsa pipes, so its exploration began immediately after its discovery. In 1959, stripping work began at the Mir quarry. A year later, the first stationary beneficiation plant was launched and the country received the first industrial diamonds from the Mir pipe. In February 1959, equipment and cargo began to be transported to Mirny along the Ust-Kut - Mukhtuya (Lensk) winter road. That same year, the USSR sold the first batch of Yakut diamonds with a total volume of 13,000 carats on the world market.

Clickable 4000 px, panorama

Processing plant No. 3 was put into production on October 21, 1966. This factory operates to this day and for many years was the largest.

Diamond mining in Yakutia is a very difficult business due to permafrost and underground mineralized water. Quarry "Mir" - nice illustration such conditions.

The Mir diamond-bearing pipe has the following parameters:

• Depth - 450 m.
• External diameter - 100-1200 m.
• Bottom diameter - 310 - 160 m.
• The total volume of ore extracted is 165 million cubic meters. m
• The influx of underground mineralized water is 150 cubic meters. m/hour
• The length of the spiral road from the surface to the bottom of the quarry is 7.7 km
• The design depth of open pit mining is 525 m.
• The explored depth of the ore body is up to 1200 m.

By 2001, Mir had become too deep and dangerous for workers. It was decided to stop open-pit diamond mining. Today it is carried out using the mine method. The quarry itself has now been converted into a local landmark. Installed above it Observation deck and a memorial sign. The mine is being mothballed for preparation of underground mining of deeper horizons - since it has been explored that the depth of diamonds in Mir exceeds a kilometer.

Mirny is a city of diamond miners. This is probably why it attracts the close attention of many today. business people all over the world. The Mir diamond-bearing pipe, discovered by geologists in the summer of 1955, gave its name to a workers’ settlement that grew up among the untrodden taiga and became a city three and a half years later.

Over the past five decades, the small tent village has become a modern industrial city with nine-story comfortable houses and asphalt roads; and the Yakutalmaz trust, which took the first steps in developing a new business for Russia - diamond mining - turned into the world-famous joint stock company ALROSA, leading diamond mining not only in the Sakha Republic, but also far beyond its borders, a business partner of a transnational company De Beers.

How far away June 55 seems today, when the now historic telegram with the text “Lighted the pipe of Peace. Excellent tobacco" served as the starting point for the development of our city with the most peaceful name in the world. In 1956, commercial operation of the tube began. On May 1, 2001, open-pit mining at the Mir pipe was completed and a huge crater in the cold Yakut soil became perhaps the most impressive landmark of the diamond mining city.

Over the course of 44 years, 170 million cubic meters of rock mass were removed from the harsh Yakut depths. Day by day the quarry deepened into last years BelAZ workers, transporting diamond-bearing ore for processing, descended along the “Mirny serpentine” to a depth of more than half a kilometer. The one-way route was 7.5 kilometers.

Today, the construction of the Mir underground mine continues, since the explored depth of the ore body is 1 kilometer 200 meters.

Mirny is home to 39.5 thousand residents, and the population of the Mirny district is more than 85.5 thousand. The area of ​​the Mirny district is impressive - 165.8 thousand square kilometers. The district includes: settlements, such as the city of Udachny, the villages of Aikhal, Chernyshevsky, Svetly, Almazny, the villages of Arylakh, Tas-Yuryakh, Syuldyukar.

Residents of the last three are mainly engaged in agriculture; In addition, an oil refinery is being built in Tas-Yuryakh. Chernyshevsky is a settlement of power engineers, the Vilyuisk hydroelectric power station-1 and hydroelectric power station-2 are located here. In the hydraulic construction village of Svetly, the third stage of the Vilyue hydroelectric power station was put into operation. In Udachny and Aikhal, two large mining and processing plants are located at the diamond deposits.

During the navigation period, part of the cargo for northerners is delivered by water to Lensk, located 240 kilometers from Mirny, and then transported by cars. But the main mode of transport is an airplane. There is nowhere in the North without aviation; it serves to transport not only passengers, but also most cargo. The runway of Mirny Airport allows it to accommodate such transport giants as Il-76 and Ruslan.

What is there in Mirny today? Two diamond processing factories, an airport, a four-story hotel, 10 restaurants, bars and cafes, 2 museums and 2 swimming pools, a city park and stadium, 3 libraries. There is an art school where children learn music and visual arts, and a small art gallery. There is a modern Palace of Culture, where many Mirny groups practice, many of them are well known outside the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

Mirny's intellectual potential has always been quite high for a provincial town. Probably the fact is that even in the first years of development of this region, extraordinary and interesting people came here. And the main type of activity required certain “levels”, because there was no diamond mining industry in Russia in those years, and a new business always requires advanced thinking and views. Residents of Novosibirsk and Riga, Muscovites and Leningraders, residents of central cities with large scientific centers came here to live and work. This affected both the rapid development of production and cultural life cities.

The Yakutniproalmaz Research Institute has existed in Mirny for many years.

In March 1994, a branch of the Yakut State University named after M.K. was opened in Mirny. Ammosova. In June 1999, by decree of the President of the Republic, the Mirny branch was transformed into the Polytechnic Institute.

The history of the regional newspaper “Mirninsky Rabochiy” spans almost four and a half decades. The newspaper is not the only mass media: there is also the Almazny Krai television and radio company. The city has its own poets and artists, the literary association “Kimberlit” and the club “Ex Libris”.

Peaceful lives his own life. It experiences the same difficulties as the whole country, rejoices in successes and struggles with difficulties. And, of course, the main wealth of the city is not diamonds, but people. Because the people in the North are simply wonderful - hospitable and welcoming, able to come to the rescue in time and lend their shoulder in difficult times. And we can talk about this, without exaggeration, to this special people for a long time.

The Mir quarry is also famous for the fact that the strongest people “break out” from its crevices. water flows with manifestations of salt, oil and gas, which is undoubtedly dangerous for mining operations. That is why the system of ore mining with caving, which was so advocated by representatives of the Moscow State Mining University, was rejected. Apparently, they were haunted by the story of the “rapid rise” of the famous Premier quarry (South Africa), which switched to underground mining and then collapsed. The absurd comparison of diamond deposits in the south of the African continent and the North-East of Russia suffered a crushing fiasco; Moscow apologists of not only an unpromising, but also a dangerous idea were left with nothing. Specialists and scientists from the Yakutniproalmaz and Gipronickel institutes defended their unyielding position and development methods with full filling of mined-out space.

Of course, one of the most important areas - the project "Dry conservation" of the Mir quarry, developed by the Yakutniproalmaz Institute, was designed to protect underground mining operations from severe water breakthroughs. The joint efforts of the Mirny Mining and Processing Plant and the Management Department of AK ALROSA contributed to the speedy resolution of the most “sick” problem - the water-bearing problem.

In parallel with these works, the Mirny Mine Construction Department (Head Konstantin Plokhan) was excavating a drainage adit. The mine builders showed great courage in conditions of increased danger of water surges and instability of the rock. In subsequent years, the Almaz-Antarex enterprise drilled four drainage wells from the side of the Mir quarry. According to the work plan, powerful pumps were lowered into the wells, which are designed to pump out brine water, which is extremely undesirable for underground work. Pumps from the German company Ritz were installed to pump out water from the bottom of the MIR quarry. And in 2004, MGOK was already finalizing the remaining volumes under the “Dry Conservation” project.

Touching on the topic of new methods, I would like to touch upon the topic of tunneling in a special way. According to the classical scheme, special methods of shaft sinking (freezing or plugging with various mixtures) are used for large water inflows, unstable or fractured rocks. All special methods can be divided into groups: fencing the bottom of the shaft from unstable rocks and water with special support and tunneling under compressed air, temporary or permanent isolation of water (artificial freezing of rocks, plugging by injection through special wells under pressure of cement or clay-cement mortar, chemical strengthening soils, artificially lowering the groundwater level and drilling shafts). In this case, freezing columns up to 540 m deep were drilled around the trunk and with their help a dense, ice wall was created, designed to protect the trunk from water and oil. Currently, the cage shaft has a depth of more than 1 km, and the skip shaft has the same depth.

In any case, the problematic issue of ensuring mine safety cannot be forgotten. Therefore, during the construction of the Mir mine, great attention was paid to the operation of the freezing station (Equipment from the Danish company York) so that it operated according to the design regime. Without this equipment and freezing of the soil, it was impossible to ensure the safety of the underground. Thus, seven years have passed since the start of construction of the underground mine, accompanied by a lot of production problems, rush jobs, noisy operational headquarters. A lot of effort was spent on sinking cage and skip shafts with fastening tubings, reinforcement, installing buildings for lifting machines of both shafts, commissioning the transport gallery and the main fan installation. The objects of the surface complex of the MIR mine, on which vital activity in the mine directly depends, were carefully and systematically erected. Several years ago, work began systematically on the construction of the first horizons.

from here photo

In 2008, the underground mine put into operation a skip shaft complex, skip hoisting machines, two 7-cubic-meter skips, as well as a cage for transporting people and lowering goods. From February to August 2008, commissioning work was completed on the main fan installation, which performs the most important function - providing ventilation of underground mine workings. At the end of December 2008, mining and capital works section No. 8, headed by A. Velichko and foreman A. Ozol, carried out the excavation of a conveyor crosscut and reached diamond tube. The author of these lines, under the thickness of the earth 650 meters, 150 meters from the bottom of the famous MIR quarry at horizon 310, was able to touch the treasured ore body. In 2009, the mine builders achieved a serious task - connecting between the -210m and -310m horizons, which made it possible to deliver cargo to all layered runs of the first operational block of the subway. Secondly, it ensures reliable ventilation of the mine. By the way, it must be said that the first production block was promptly prepared for mining operations or, at the miner’s term, the mining operation. In March 2009, an important operation was completed - the sliding of the above-mine structure to accommodate a lifting unit, the function of which is to lower workers to underground levels, deliver materials, equipment, and also issue rock. And in the spring of 2009, commissioning work began. The Mir mine was commissioned in 2009.

August 21, 2009 will be remembered as a significant date in modern history diamond mining: Mirny pompously celebrated the launch of the first stage of the MIR underground mine. This is the crown of many years of work, significantly strengthening the position of AK ALROSA in all aspects. The MIR underground mine has become a powerful production unit of AK ALROSA, capable of producing 1 million tons of diamond ore. Now it’s time to complete the construction of the stowage complex. Much will depend on the progress of its construction and equipping.

—> Satellite images (Google Maps) <—

sources
http://sakhachudo.narod.ru
http://gorodmirny.ru

Sand quarry - two people! Are there any volunteers? No? Well, then let's go to the Mir diamond quarry in Yakutia, where you can look at something more interesting than a shovel and a stretcher with sand.

So, Yakutia is a country of cold weather, Yakuts and... diamonds. It is here that a significant portion of natural diamonds are mined, which are used by Russia for domestic needs and sent for export. A kimberlite pipe is a deposit of diamond rock, something like a funnel that may or may not contain diamonds. Discovered in 1955, the kimberlite pipe, later named “Mir,” turned out to be a very successful find, and as development progressed, it became one of the largest diamond quarries in the world, where hundreds of diamonds of various sizes were mined annually.

The most amazing find was a diamond weighing 68 grams (for comparison, the diamond in your ring, as a rule, weighs 0.5 - 3 grams at best). After cutting, it became smaller, but still remained the largest natural diamond in the USSR and the CIS countries, and was named in honor of the XXVI Congress of the CPSU. Now the precious, if not the most precious, stone is stored in the Diamond Fund of Russia.

By the way, the story of the discovery of the pipe is in some ways even mystical. Imagine... Yakutia. Dubak is scary! Off-road, snow and nothing interesting around. But then prospecting geologists notice a tall larch and rush to it, as if to at least some kind of landmark. And they see, therefore, a fox hole under it. And the soil in the hole has a characteristic bluish tint, indicating the presence of the desired rock here. Who knows, maybe the mistress of the taiga herself in fox guise decided to take pity on the frozen bearded geologists and show them the way? However, this is unlikely.

After the telegram “The pipe of peace was lit. “Excellent tobacco” came to Moscow, trucks with tarpaulin and diesel fuel, cement and shovels, canned food and pillowcases with stitching arrived here, and future diamond miners built themselves a village, and then the city of “Mirny”, simultaneously cutting down both that first larch and many more trees, having shot foxes and arctic foxes and thoroughly fogging the clean taiga air with exhaust fumes.

But let’s not talk about the sad things, because although the quarry has grown thoroughly over time, it has brought cosmic diversity to these places. The descent along the serpentine quarry is approximately 8 kilometers (imagine this journey!). But, in order to better appreciate the size of the quarry, imagine that, if you look at it from a bird's eye view, the residential buildings next to it look like pieces of a match next to a tea saucer.

Such a giant crater was gnawed into the ground by Soviet industry, and in striving for rapid diamond mining, people created a danger for themselves - the quarry could at any moment begin to crumble and pull houses into itself, and only God knows what will open up in the middle of the site. So, of course, tourists are not allowed there (although they still flock there, like some “black” diamond miners who want to try their luck). However, you can fly near the crater in a helicopter - just near it, and in no case over it, since the air currents formed in the diamond quarry easily suck in any aircraft, so such a trip can be fatal.

In the quarry itself, diamond mining is also no longer carried out - a system of underground mines is being created nearby, which should be safer and more economically profitable than the open diamond quarry in Yakutia.
However, an attempt is already being made to reduce the level of danger for the city and the environment. Moreover, this can be done in a very original way - namely, by building... a city in a quarry. Its dimensions allow this quite well - the depth of the tube is half a kilometer, the diameter is one and a half.

The city will turn out to be small, but ultra-modern - as planned by the creators. This will be the world's first eco-city in a pit, located on several tiers, based on a concrete block-plug, which will prevent the quarry from collapsing, and covered on top with an energy-saving dome. The city will have its own agricultural plots, which will provide residents with everything they need, and they plan to receive energy from the sun (according to scientists, an energy-saving dome over the quarry will help accumulate enough to meet the needs of the city, and the Earth’s heat can additionally be used for heating), houses (mainly for tourists), scientific laboratories and much more.

Of course, in terms of the cost of construction, the eco-city project may exceed the cost of all diamonds mined in the Mir diamond quarry (and, for a minute, they were mined up to two kilograms per year, and high-quality diamonds for industrial needs were valued higher than future diamonds for rings and earrings) , but it can also pay for itself quickly - due to low energy consumption costs and the funds of tourists who will definitely want to visit this place. In the meantime, the closed but not forgotten quarry gapes with a huge funnel, which is both frightening and beckoning.

Ksenia Vilchinskaya,
Anastasia Berseneva