Qualla: Jwaneng diamond mine

Jwaneng diamond mine: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jens Pattke, CC0. From the rim, the pit looks like an amphitheater built for giants: terraces of pale rock spiraling down hundreds of meters into the Kalahari, haul trucks the size of houses reduced to crawling specks at the bottom. This is Jwaneng, the richest diamond mine in the world by value, and the people who work it call it the Prince of Mines. The name comes from Setswana and means, fittingly, "a place where a small stone is found." The small stones found here, by the millions of carats each year, have done something almost no mineral wealth ever does for the country it comes from: they made it better off.

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Image: Jens Pattke | CC0

Jwaneng diamond mine: A Volcano's Buried Gift

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cretep, Public domain. The diamonds at Jwaneng rode to the surface inside a kimberlite pipe, the fossil throat of a volcanic eruption that tore up from deep in the Earth during the Permian period, well over 200 million years ago. As that magma blasted upward through the crust at tremendous speed, it ca...

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Image: Cretep | Public domain

Jwaneng diamond mine: The Stones in the Sand

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cretep, Public domain. Finding Jwaneng took patience and a touch of luck. In the early 1970s, De Beers exploration teams traced indicator minerals across the Kalahari, where windblown sand had buried any obvious sign of a pipe. In February 1973 the search paid off with the identification of the deposit...

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Image: Cretep | Public domain

Jwaneng diamond mine: A Partnership, Not a Plunder

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cretep, Public domain. What sets Jwaneng apart is who shares in the wealth. The mine is run by Debswana, an equal joint venture between the diamond giant De Beers and the government of Botswana. When Botswana gained independence in 1966 it was among the poorest nations on Earth, with almost no paved ro...

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Image: Cretep | Public domain

Jwaneng diamond mine: Digging Deeper

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cretep, Public domain. After four decades, Jwaneng's open pit is nearing the practical limits of how deep a hole this wide can safely go. Rather than close, its owners are reaching further down. A major expansion aims to push the workings well below their current depth of around 400 meters, extending t...

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Image: Cretep | Public domain