DIAMONDS, DIAMONDS & MORE DIAMONDS

Gem diamonds from Kelsey Lake Colorado.

My first experience in diamond hunting occurred back when I mapped the Wyoming State Line kimberlite district. I  later mapped the Iron Mountain and Sheep Rock kimberlite districts and the Leucite Hills lamproite field. And when I had time, I  explored for diamonds as a consultant for US, Australian, and some Canadian companies. 

I searched for kimberlite, lamproite and lamprophrye in California, Kansas, Montana & Wyoming & identified, a few hundred cryptovolcanic structures within & surrounding the State Line in Colorado and Wyoming - some of which are likely diamond deposits (nearly all remain unexplored)! A few  include Indian Guide, Twin Mountain, Happy Jack & others. I expanded my research & found cyptovolcanic structures in Canada & even in the Kimberley region of South Africa, and found a major anomaly of 50+ anomalies sitting along Interstate-80 in Wyoming!

16.8 faceted gem diamond, Kelsey Lake, Colorado

Diamond deposits south of Laramie are in kimberlite pipes & placers. The kimberlites are deeply eroded & spilled millions of diamonds into the surrounding streams, but no one ever systematically looked for diamond in the creeks (even so, diamonds were accidentally recovered in Rabbit Creek along with a 5-carat diamond, and hundreds were recovered in George Creek, and several including a 6.2 carat diamond were recovered in Fish Creek, but the rest of the streams are mostly UNPROSPECTED!

Kimberlite is a ultrabasic, potassic igneous rock that erupts along fractures from 90- to 120-mi depths. They typically occur in very old cratons & cratonized rocks (basically ancient continental cores that consist of >1.5 billion year old granite, gneiss & schist). The magma, under pressure rises rapidly from the mantle because of the great depth & because of considerable water vapor & carbon dioxide under pressure. Some suggest gaseous emplacement velocities of kimberlite are on the order of Mach 3. The eruption is relatively cool: CO2 gas expands cooling the magma such that emplacement temperatures of 32 degree F are not uncommon. This collection of unusual characteristics results in small, circular maar-like volcanoes (without cones) & dikes that are structurally controlled.

Gem diamond with excellent characteristic
trigons on surface

Things to keep in mind: kimberlite will serpentinize because of water vapor, this produces a relatively soft rock that erodes faster than surrounding country rocks & usually results in a depression with different vegetation than the surrounding rocks. These depressions may contain shallow ponds. They are structurally-controlled such that >one anomaly is often found in a line. Because of calcium carbonate in kimberlite, carbonate will leach out into the pond staining the soil white. Keep in mind that salts are not all that uncommon in basins where lots of young sedimentary rocks occur with considerable carbonate. But in the craton basement (i.e., mountain ranges of Wyoming) there is no known source for carbonate, so if you spot a structurally-controlled lake surrounded by salt in old Precambrian rock, you might want to find out why? When you find one, typically, you will find others along the same structure.

Diamonds found in Colorado & Wyoming ranged from microdiamonds to 28.3-cts & included one chip from a 80- to 90-carat stone. Many people erroneously assume there are no commercial diamond deposits in this region - but all four diamond mills that were constructed in the district, were so poorly designed that they likely rejected as many diamonds as they recovered. Even so, commercial diamond deposits were encountered at Kelsey Lake and mined for only about 6-months before lawsuits shut down the operation. Thus, only the very top of the diamond pipe was touched by mining and thousands (if not many millions) of gem-quality diamonds lie in the host kimberlite and remain unmined!  And this doesn't even include the thousands of placer diamonds eroded from the kimberlite and carried downstream over geological time. 

A flawless, 14.2-carat octahedral diamond recovered from
the Kelsey Lake diamond mine. Photo courtesy of Howard
Coopersmith.

Then there is the Sloan 1 and 2 kimberlites in Colorado. DiamonEx from Australia was developing this property for commercial tests when the economy crashed in 2008 and put most diamond operations out of business including DiamonEx Ltd. Up to that point, the property appeared to be commercial based on the diamond ore grades.

All of the mills in the State Line district were so poorly designed they rejected diamonds of all sizes. The Kelsey Lake mill rejected anything weighing >40 cts! It also rejected many diamonds under 40-cts such that when the tailings were tested in 1997, the first sample yielded a 6.2-ct gemstone along with other diamonds!

High wall of Kelsey Lake kimberlite, State Line district, Colorado-Wyoming. Nearly all of the 
diamondiferous kimberlite was abandoned and never mined because of lawsuits. To this day (2022) 
this diamond deposit remains mostly unmined.

The grades of several kimberlites were high, the gem:industrial ratios were good & diamond values were reasonable. The biggest problem with the State Line district was that diamond mill expertise was in short supply.