A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014)

#31

Post by thriftwy » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 8:18 PM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #22

thriftwy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there's this consideration: In Europe, most of towns are historic, they're in good places and can take any place in economic system. In America, there are towns dedicated to mining or specialized farming (rubber?), but they quickly get abandoned when mine is exhausted or the output is no longer needed. Soviet Union built quite a few towns in remote northern locations, they were way bigger than feasible for minin…

If you get away from coastal cities you see similar phenomena in the US. I have family that grew up in a coal town in Pennsylvania where coal is long gone. The big employers are mostly fulfilment centers and the primary claim to fame is now its descendants of 19th and 20th century European immigrants enacting discriminatory housing policy towards the new wave of Latino immigrants. A lot has been made about how these…

Why would Latino immigrants move in if there are no jobs or economic activity?

Anyway, I guess Pennsylvania is habitable when the push comes to shove. Vorkuta, Mirny or Norilsk simply aren't. They're more like Mars bases.

Re: A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014)

#32

Post by WillyOnWheels » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

dimitar wrote: post #16

thriftwy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there's this consideration: In Europe, most of towns are historic, they're in good places and can take any place in economic system. In America, there are towns dedicated to mining or specialized farming (rubber?), but they quickly get abandoned when mine is exhausted or the output is no longer needed. Soviet Union built quite a few towns in remote northern locations, they were way bigger than feasible for minin…

It is a major cause of potential social instability. The conflict in Donbass also has a similar interpretation: coal production there peaked in the late 70 and by the 90 it was an endlessly subsidized rust belt, with a significant minority of the population being born outside Ukraine. It is a backwater hopelessly reliant on outside help, with widespread violent crime, alcoholism, drug use and corruption. It is these…

I hate GDP statistics but it is generally understood that the Donbass' mining and heavy industry account for about 1/4 of Ukraine's GDP and 10 percent of Ukraine's population.

You may think it's a backwater but people actually live and work there.

Re: A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014)

#33

Post by quakeguy » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 9:04 PM UTC

georgecmu wrote: post #5

supahfly_remix wrote: post #4

Helicopters can't fly over it—the downward force of the air would pull them in. Can someone explain the physics of this? The air above the hold is at the same pressure as that beside the hole, otherwise there would be a constant wind. Also, above a certain altitude helicopters don't rely on ground effects.

If a hole is deep enough — and a half-kilometer deep hole qualifies — the earth will warm the air inside it. The deeper the hole, the warmer the air. Warm air rises, and cool air sinks, so with a big temperature difference between in-hole air and aboveground air, you get quite a bit of air movement. Thus, two things are happening. First, the warm air rising from the hole is less dense and gives less lift to helicopte…

One comment from that link made me curious.

"They should install wind turbines around the perimeter of the hole and take advantage of it! New form of renewable energy – hole in the ground energy!"

Clearly a form of joke, but im intrigued to know why this won't work. (Or why it could work)

Re: A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014)

#34

Post by arm85 » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 9:28 PM UTC

ghostly_s wrote: post #8

willvarfar wrote: post #6

> These diamonds were all of a uniform size and shape and were dubbed 'Silver Bears'. While DeBeers could not understand how the Soviets were producing such a large quantity of gem diamonds of such uniform size, and supposedly from one mine that by DeBeers surveys should not be capable of such diamond production, they were, nevertheless, pressured to purchase them all lest the Soviets simply dump the diamonds on the…

The general opinion is this is a synthetic diamond laundering operation. Synthetic diamonds are of course chemically identical to natural, but natural diamonds still fetch a higher price.

https://www.wired.com/2003/09/diamond/

"A few hours later, Clarke was looking at a blueprint for an 8,000-pound machine that used hydraulics and electricity to focus increasing amounts of pressure and heat on the core of a sphere. The device, he was told, re-created the conditions 100 miles below Earth's surface, where diamonds form. Put a sliver of a diamond in the core, inject some carbon, and voil�, a larger diamond will grow around the sliver."

Re: A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014)

#35

Post by benchaney » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 9:35 PM UTC

quakeguy wrote: post #33

georgecmu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a hole is deep enough — and a half-kilometer deep hole qualifies — the earth will warm the air inside it. The deeper the hole, the warmer the air. Warm air rises, and cool air sinks, so with a big temperature difference between in-hole air and aboveground air, you get quite a bit of air movement. Thus, two things are happening. First, the warm air rising from the hole is less dense and gives less lift to helicopte…

One comment from that link made me curious. "They should install wind turbines around the perimeter of the hole and take advantage of it! New form of renewable energy – hole in the ground energy!" Clearly a form of joke, but im intrigued to know why this won't work. (Or why it could work)

If you are digging really big holes, there are presumably more efficient geothermal schemes.

Re: A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014)

#36

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 9:44 PM UTC

ortusdux wrote: post #19

This mine is the first thing I zoom in on when checking out a new procedurally generated 3d world map service. It is easy to spot because of the nearby Vilyuy Reservoir built to power the mine. Everyone's algorithm can handle mountians, but I've yet to see one that correctly renders this crater. Even google earth shows the mine as flat.

a new procedurally generated 3d world map service

Don't tempt us with interesting details like that and then leave out the name :)

Re: A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014)

#37

Post by milcron » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 11:14 PM UTC

ljoshua wrote: post #7

willvarfar wrote: post #6

> These diamonds were all of a uniform size and shape and were dubbed 'Silver Bears'. While DeBeers could not understand how the Soviets were producing such a large quantity of gem diamonds of such uniform size, and supposedly from one mine that by DeBeers surveys should not be capable of such diamond production, they were, nevertheless, pressured to purchase them all lest the Soviets simply dump the diamonds on the…

I was curious about that particular aspect as well. A little Googling brought me to this rather interesting account of Silver Bears and the market forces at play: http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/diamond/chap17.htm (tl;dr: though unconfirmed a noted diamond expert believed the Soviets had created a diamond cutting machine instead of relying on human cutters, though others disputed the idea.)

It sounds as though they were creating gem-quality synthetic diamonds but kept it on the down-low, and used their Siberian mines as cover.

Re: A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014)

#38

Post by ridgeguy » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 11:26 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #18

ghostly_s wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, I read an article some years ago that said as much. I expect you could identify natural diamonds by impurities and subtle imperfections in the cut, but I don't know how you could conclusively prove a too-perfect diamond was synthetic.

According to this article[0] it is possible, but it's not like there's one 100% accurate method - but a skilled gemologist should be able to identify a synthetic diamond: https://www.gia.edu/sites/Satellite?c=Page&childpagename=GIA...

Yes, it's possible with a high degree of confidence to distinguish natural from synthetic diamonds and for synthetics, to determine which method (HPHT or CVD) was used to make them.

The IIDGR [1] company makes a series of devices (DiamondSure, DiamondView and DiamondPlus) that will indicate whether a diamond is a natural (and if so, of what type), or flag it for further characterization. One system will flag type IIa naturals for further analysis, as they resemble the best of CVD synthetic diamonds. Microscopy + (IR, fluorescence, and photoluminescence) spectroscopy distinguish a stone's origin to high confidence. Even though the best CVD stones have far lower impurities than the best naturals, they have internal strain patterns (optical birefringence) that can be diagnostic.

Most jewelers don't have these machines, but they are available as a service.

Faceted CVD stones have been seen up to 5 carats [2] and 10 carat stones made by HPHT are known [3]

[1] https://www.iidgr.com [2] https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/winter-2016-labnotes-CVD-s... [3] https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/winter-2016-labnotes-blue-...

Re: A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014)

#39

Post by ericfranklin » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 11:28 PM UTC

milcron wrote: post #37

ljoshua wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious about that particular aspect as well. A little Googling brought me to this rather interesting account of Silver Bears and the market forces at play: http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/diamond/chap17.htm (tl;dr: though unconfirmed a noted diamond expert believed the Soviets had created a diamond cutting machine instead of relying on human cutters, though others disputed the idea.)

It sounds as though they were creating gem-quality synthetic diamonds but kept it on the down-low, and used their Siberian mines as cover.

Even today there are only a couple places in the former Soviet Union that can grow gem-quality synthetic white diamonds. Their production numbers are far less than the output of a single mine, and the results are still rather random. Prior to 2004 or so, the only synthetic diamonds that could be produced commercially were colored and primarily industrial-grade.

Re: A Huge Diamond Mine That Helped Build The Soviet Union (2014)

#40

Post by ericfranklin » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 11:36 PM UTC

cr0sh wrote: post #17

ghostly_s wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general opinion is this is a synthetic diamond laundering operation. Synthetic diamonds are of course chemically identical to natural, but natural diamonds still fetch a higher price.

> The general opinion is this is a synthetic diamond laundering operation. If this is true, then the Soviet Union must have come up with an alternate method to produce "tons" of these high quality, large diamonds long before anyone else: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond The two methods then known to make synthetic diamonds, were only useful for industrial diamond purposes, if I'm reading that correctly…

Correct. The Soviet technology for growing diamonds is HPHT (high pressure high temperature). There are a handful of known producers and research facilities in the former Soviet Union that can grow diamonds, but all using HPHT. These were all industrial grade until the late 90s-early 00s, and colorless diamonds did not consistently grow with this technology for several more years.

The other technology you mention is CVD (chemical vapor deposition), which was not developed in Russia, and was not commercially viable for gem-quality diamonds until the last decade either.