The Venetia Diamond Mine is

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

's largest producer of

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 ...

s, since 1995. It is situated close to the

n town of Alldays in the

Limpopo province Limpopo () is the northernmost province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a group of Tsonga settlers ...

and is located within the 360 km²

Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve , embedded={{Location map , South Africa#South Africa Limpopo , relief=1 , width=300 , coordinates={{coord, 22.3807, S, 29.2907, E, region:ZA-LP, format=dms, display=inline,title, map_caption={{leftlegend, #1e5833, Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserv ...

. The open cast mine is one of

De Beers The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...

’ six remaining diamond mines in South Africa and the only major diamond mine to be developed in the country during the past 25 years. As such, the mine represents one of De Beers’ single biggest investments in South Africa. The mine was opened in 1992 by

Harry Oppenheimer Harry Frederick Oppenheimer OMSG (28 October 1908 – 19 August 2000) was a prominent South African businessman, industrialist and philanthropist. Oppenheimer was often ranked as one of the wealthiest people in the world, and was considered S ...

, a former De Beers chairman. In 2004 the mine had 955 employees and recovered 7,187,300 carats (1437.5 kg) of diamonds from 5,871,000

metric ton 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 sh ...

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 ...

.In 2021 the mine will cease its opencast operation and move towards underground mining extending the life of the mine by a further 21 years up to 2044. The Kolope River flows 8 km to the west of the mine. Surface water storage dams have been built on two of its tributaries.Hydrogeology of the Venetia Diamond Mine, South Africa
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References

External links

Sustaining Water Supplies While Responding to Operational Requirements at De Beers Venetia MineEffect of Small Catchment Dams on Downstream Vegetation of a Seasonal River in semi-arid African Savanna
Diamond mines in South Africa Surface mines in South Africa Geography of Limpopo Economy of Limpopo {{SouthAfrica-mine-stub