How to Mine the Surf Zone.....

[Michael Alexander]

A heated and interesting discussion was held at a local watering hole last night..... the survey dept believes that the surf zone ( the area between the High and low water mark) is potentially very very rich in diamond bearing gravel..... for decades they have been trying to figure out what the best method would be to mine this 50m strip of ocean.... in fact a multi million rand powerfull survey boat was purchased not to long ago to do tests in this zone..... Sea walking monsters were being tried out, but they can fall victim to the swells ..... I gave my suggestion at the bar, drawings included..... got a nice response...

Do any of you out there, have a clever suggestion on how to solve this problem?

[georgswa (Georg Ruf) (RIP)]

As far as i remember thats exactly what was done in my time.

Remember the Sea wall and mining below sea level......

Is that what you talk about ???

[Michael Alexander]

The sea walls along the entire coast have pushed the beach 100m out, so the coastline is not the original, but now you have a new beach area.... but it is too deep and dangerous and expensive to try and push the sea wall out any further.... you cannot bring a boat in any closer as that is also dangerous... so it is in theory the 50m distance between the "new beach' into the ocean, bearing in mind that the continental drop is closer....

[Gordon Brown]

Michael I think it unlikely there will be any diamonds in the beach overburden and that one would have to go to bedrock(>-80m below sea level) to find diamond bearing gravels especially in the south of the Sperrgebiet. Quite a challenge!! It gets a bit shallower the further north we go from 4 Plant area. In these areas of shallower bedrock, one could try a dragline or vacuveyor on 'walking' stilts. Would have to do the sums bearing in mind the fact that the average diamond size (and ave. revenue per carat) decreases the further up the coast one goes. But the grade in carats per ton increases to the north so there will be more diamonds recovered at a smaller average stone size.
Best regards
gordon