Gems HQ

We all know that all the fine jewelry consist of gemstones. They could be precious or semi-precious, of natural or of organic origin. But have anyone thought how these gem stones have been mined? I can tell you a little about this.

There are two most popular, basic methods of gem mining all over the world. One occurs when the mining goes in open pit – so called open cut gem mining. The other one stands for using expensive technological devices and digging tunnels that usually follow gemstone bearing veins.

The tunneling method is less effective I suppose, and it has some big drawbacks. The main problem is the question of waste removal. And what is more there is a big chance that when mining the tunnel will pass away from the vein, so none will ever find it. As you see this method is really not very profitable and therefore professional miners prefer open cut method. But in recent years as better gem mining techniques appear a return to the method of tunneling is quite evident due to its reduced personnel, advantages of operation, machinery and more enhanced control over the production and whole process.

But of course for successful open pit gem mining there should be a lot of conditions fulfilled. For example the place of mining must be of steep slope topography and possess a big water supply to allow more efficient waste disposal. There were whole systems developed to help miners this way. The most common one was benching of the working face that consisted of some narrow horizontal steps all across the slope. There exposed friable rock was dislodged with steel bars easily. When this place was running out of gemstones another one was traced above the old one. That was done for dumping the waste on the exhausted step below.

The curious thing is that to strip off the soil and vegetation bulldozers are mostly used. That is because high-end mechanized exploration had proven itself quite risky because it is unable to get rid of the hit-and-miss element, making necessary further inspections. So now only bulldozers remove wastes (they remain after flushing the debris away with streams of water) not discarding gemstones along with them.

Gem mining process can be accomplished only in the places where slopes are steep enough and there is plenty of water supply and free space for dump waste accumulation in the hill. Otherwise there will be necessary to use other mining methods (extensive bulldozing, tunneling and maybe use of explosives that can destroy valuable crystals inside the rocks).

Among the countries where gem mining does a good income are Colombia with its ‘emerald rectangle’ (area of 250 km long by 50 wide, where the most important mines of Muzo and Chivor are situated) and jadeite mines in Burma which are considered to be the oldest gemstone mines known. It was believed that even Buddha (the Indian and Chinese sage and god) was using jade stones to build a terrestrial bridge between heaven and hell.