The Murowa diamond mine is a

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

mine located in Mazvihwa, south central

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

, about 40 kilometres from the asbestos mining town of Zvishavane in the Midlands province. The mine is owned and operated by RZM Murowa (Private) Limited, a member of RioZim (a Zimbabwe listed company). The mine is a combination of

open pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or ...

and underground construction. Current estimates put construction costs at $61 million

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

and mine reserves are 19 million

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the s ...

s of

ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically including metals, concentrated above background levels, and that is economically viable to mine and process. The grade of ore refers to the concentration ...

, with an ore grade of per tonne.

Geology of the Deposit

Murowa consists of three north-trending

kimberlite Kimberlite is an igneous rock and a rare variant of peridotite. It is most commonly known as the main host matrix for diamonds. It is named after the town of Kimberley, Northern Cape, Kimberley in South Africa, where the discovery of an 83.5-Car ...

pipes, intrusive into the Chivi suite

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

s of the Zimbabwe Craton. The kimberlites have been dated at 500 Ma.

History

The Murowa site's possibilities were first realized in 1997 when three diamond-bearing

pipes Pipe(s), PIPE(S) or piping may refer to: Objects * Pipe (fluid conveyance), a hollow cylinder following certain dimension rules ** Piping, the use of pipes in industry * Smoking pipe ** Tobacco pipe * Half-pipe and quarter pipe, semi-circu ...

were discovered; over a period of three years of study, the two larger pipes have been determined to be economically feasible as mines. Construction of mine facilities was completed in late 2004. Preparation for mining included the forced relocation of 926 people living on the mine site to six farms purchased by a government relocation program. Limited mining operations began in Murowa in 2004, with full capacity expected to be reached sometime in 2005, although permitting problems slowed progress towards this milestone. In 2018, 1,018,776 tonnes of diamonds were processed. In 2023, the previous owner of the mine, Harpal Randhawa, died alongside his son and 4 other passengers in a plane crash.

References

Diamond mines in Zimbabwe Underground mines in Zimbabwe Surface mines in Zimbabwe Former Rio Tinto (corporation) subsidiaries Diatremes Volcanoes of Zimbabwe Pre-Holocene volcanoes Buildings and structures in Midlands Province Geography of Midlands Province {{gemology-stub