The below comments on the results of the surveying season 2012 were given by Academician Nikolai Pokhilenko, Director of the Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy within the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The news was reported by RIA Sibir.
“This year, the Siberian Branch of the RAS concluded the partnership agreement with ALROSA and rather serious work is already in progress. Field surveying has been completed in the Arctic zone and it allows to talk firmly about very interesting results. These results, in particular, will be a subject for discussions during the visit of the Branch top-management to the town of Mirny, the informal capital of ALROSA,” said Pokhilenko.
“I had a chance to spend 6 weeks in the fields. New, rather reliable information has been obtained about the availability of new core diamond sources in the Arctic regions of Yakutia. Taking into account the geological information obtained earlier, diamondiferous kimberlites of Triassic period were searched for there, but we have received solid data that to the north of the Olenyokskoye upheaval, diamondiferous kimberlite pipes of Middle Paleozoic period - older ones - should be searched for. During this season we gained new evidence that our model was a realistic one: pyropes, picroilmenites – the kimberlite indicator minerals - were found in channel deposits. Adequate rock material was collected that confirms the presence of a high content diamondiferous kimberlite there. The significant chemical corrosion traces on the mineral surface prove that the minerals from the kimberlites are of the assumed Middle Paleozoic period. This corrosion could occur in a warm and humid climate only that was on these territories in the Palaeozoic Era, in the Carbonic period only, after the emplacement of the kimberlites,” emphasizes the academician.
The research establishments of the SB RAS, including the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, are now fulfilling the contracts with the ALROSA units, for example, with the Arctic Expedition. Right now, the agreements are under coordination that are for the benefit of the whole Russian diamond corporation, including the work on the Popigaisky Crater, about its so called ‘impact diamonds’ there were a lot of publications in the Russian media and abroad.
A serious contract is under preparation for prognostic-exploration work with the ALROSA Botuobinskaya Expedition in the south of Yakutia, in so called Charo-Sinskaya zone of geosuture. “We have worked there for two seasons within the framework of the programme under the state contract with the federal agency on the use of subsurface resources in the RF and obtained interesting results. There are rather definite prospects of diamondiferous kimberlites presence: indicator minerals were found there like in the north of the republic, including pyropes of specific composition that exist in diamondiferous kimberlite pipes only, and nowhere else,” said Pokhilenko.
According to Pokhilenko, the Institute of the geology of diamonds and precious metals of the Yakutsk Research Centre of the SB RAS will be engaged to the utmost at the new site in the area of Manchary pipe to the south of Yakutsk. The Institute of Earth Crust and the Institute of Geochemistry named after A. P. Vinogradov, Irkutsk Research Centre, SB RAS, will continue to study the diamond content of their region. The Irkutsk geochemists will also work in the Arctic zone. The ALROSA experts cooperate actively with our organizations that have strong instrument engineering potential: the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, Institute of Automation and Electrometry, Technological Design Institute of Scientific Instrument Engineering and several Technopark-based companies of the Novosibirsk Academic Township. The N. A. Chinakal Institute of Mining (Novosibirsk) and N. V. Chersky Institute Mining of the North, SB RAS, will join the development of new technologies of diamond extraction.
“Together with other Institutes we do our best to most efficiently use the allocated budget of about RUB 200 million for three years. Other SB RAS Institutes, including our Institute, have agreements with the ALROSA units. Recently, a contract was signed for studies of geochemical and petrochemical composition of kimberlites at the new Mayskoye deposit,” noted Nikolai Pokhilenko.
