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Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

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continental shelf, with diamonds being discovered in water-depths<br />

exceeding 70 m during the mid-1970’s. The present distribution of<br />

onshore and offshore mining and exploration licenses in southern<br />

Namibia is summarised in figure 2. Some exclusive prospecting licenses<br />

extend to 2000 mbsl.<br />

500m Isobath<br />

200m Isobath<br />

LüDERITZ<br />

CHAMEIS<br />

100 Km<br />

ORANJEMUND<br />

Figure 2. The extent of NAMDEB offshore mining and exploration licenses shown in<br />

grey.<br />

2 Geology of the “West Coast” diamond deposits<br />

2.1 Overview of regional-scale model<br />

Namibia’s diamonds are famous throughout the world for their<br />

high quality. This is the result of transport in some of the world’s highestenergy<br />

sedimentary systems, which ruthlessly destroy fractured, lowerquality<br />

stones and concentrate a very high quality product in placers that<br />

occupy a number of different settings. To date, in excess of 100 million<br />

carats of diamonds have been recovered by mining operations, with the<br />

largest weighing 246 carats having been recovered during early onshore<br />

prospecting operations.<br />

INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 575

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