Whiteflash-Diamond Playground

From Times Online - They call it the high-end stone game. Somewhere out there, in a desolate corner of an unexplored wilderness, lies the next great diamond mine. They are looking for it in the harshest deserts of Africa. The Russians think they might find it under the Arctic. Recently I met a woman who had already found one great mine in Canada, and thinks she may find another. When Eira Thomas was six, her Welsh geologist father took her prospecting in Canada’s Northwest Territories, a 400,000 square mile expanse of lakes, forests and mountains inhabited mainly by mosquitoes. “Not a lot of kids get a chance to explore the tundra,” she said. The mosquitoes failed to put her off. The bug that bit her was a passion for exploration that has turned her, at the age of 38, into Canada’s Queen of Diamonds. Twelve years ago, when she was a newly-qualified geologist working for her father’s company, she transformed the world’s $13 billion (£6.4 billion) a year diamond industry with her discovery of the high-grade deposit that eventually became the fabulous Diavik mine. It took years and millions of dollars to develop, but Diavik helped to turn Canada into the world’s fourth-largest diamond producer, behind Botswana, Russia and South Africa. It also provided morally impeccable, high quality gems untainted by conflict or blood. Thomas has since become one of the world’s most accomplished players in the hunt for high-end stones. But in the past decade there has not been another Diavik-sized discovery, by her or anyone else. (full story) Photo from portfolio.com.