With its 525 meters deep, and its diameter of 1200 metersthe MIR mine is behind the mine of Oudatchnaïa (also in Russia), Chuquicamata in Chile and Bingham Canyon in the United States. The diamond deposit was discovered in 1955 by three Soviet geologists.
And as early as 1957, the exploitation works began, under extremely harsh climatic conditions: The ground is frozen 7 months a year, While summer transforms the area into a quagmire. To dig the mine, the workers therefore had to call on aircraft reactors or dynamite to break the ice and permafrost.
In total, 350 million m³ of rocks were extracted to recover diamonds in the mine. It is estimated that, in the 1960s, MIR produced up to 10 million carats of diamonds each year, which represents approximately 2 tonnes. On the side of records, The biggest diamond found on site weighed 342.5 carats (Soit 68 G).
Since 2001, the exploitation of open -air layers has been over, the fault of exhaustion of resources. But Extraction has continued since the 1970s in the basementthanks to a large network of underground tunnels. According to estimates, the underground reserves should allow operations for another twenty years.
