Fsbirdhouse Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 We all know about the concept of continental drift.Try getting two detailed maps, one of Africa, and one of South America, preferably scaled to each other, and preferably National geographics maps that show not only the current shorelines of the two continents, but the edge of the Continental plates.Overlay these scaled maps, not at the shoreline, but at the edges of the Continental plates. Relatively speaking, there is very little missing to make a perfect fit.Now do some research about the diamond mining being done off the beaches of South Africa and Namibia.My understanding is that they are currently bucketline dredging out to the edge of the Continental plate.The other half of those diamond fields are on the other side of the Atlantic, and there is no record of them being mined.I'll bet the boys at DeBeers know about them!Somebody is getting paid off to keep it quiet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigrex Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 We all know about the concept of continental drift.Try getting two detailed maps, one of Africa, and one of South America, preferably scaled to each other, and preferably National geographics maps that show not only the current shorelines of the two continents, but the edge of the Continental plates.Overlay these scaled maps, not at the shoreline, but at the edges of the Continental plates. Relatively speaking, there is very little missing to make a perfect fit.Now do some research about the diamond mining being done off the beaches of South Africa and Namibia.My understanding is that they are currently bucketline dredging out to the edge of the Continental plate.The other half of those diamond fields are on the other side of the Atlantic, and there is no record of them being mined.I'll bet the boys at DeBeers know about them!Somebody is getting paid off to keep it quiet!I think most of the diamonds are found in the continent cratons, which are the oldest and thickest portions of continental crust. They tend to be the core of the present day continents. So, those cratons often are in the interior of a continent, not the edges. However, that's a general rule, South Africa seems to be an exception, and I know there is or was some diamond mining in the ocean and beaches off of some countries in Africa. You can pull up maps of continent cratons and you will see that the majority of diamond finds come from areas located in the cratons. Let me see if I can find a good map and post it up here... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigrex Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 Ok, here's a decent although small map, and you are right, several of the craton areas do neatly line up between Africa and South America. Archon=Cratonhttp://www.newgeology.us/presentation41.htmlAnywhere in green you have a good chance of finding diamonds, but it's not just limited to those areas. For example, Arkansas would be an exception. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fsbirdhouse Posted January 14, 2011 Author Share Posted January 14, 2011 And if the modern day beaches they're mining now were once the center of a continent since torn apart?Maybe that's why they're finding them out to the edge of the shelf?Wouldn't it be fun to check the beaches on the South American side....just in case?Wouldn't it now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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