Marine Diamond Mining.
Discussion
Until today I did not know that diamonds could be mined from the sea.
http://gcaptain.com/de-beers-order-worlds-largest-...
Assume its a big dredger and a load of sifting work?
Perhaps I could find diamonds in the Solent mud?
http://gcaptain.com/de-beers-order-worlds-largest-...
Assume its a big dredger and a load of sifting work?
Perhaps I could find diamonds in the Solent mud?
They've been doing it for years off the Namibian coast. I was offered a job at a DeBeers facility that processed the dredged diamonds in 1980 but turned it down as it meant living in a "closed" compound with a trip to Cape Town once a month for two days and considering the isolation the pay wasn't that good either.
BTW, anyone interesting in just how bonkers Project Azorian and the Hughes Glomar Explorer really were, check out some of the details of the system built to lift a 2,000 tonne sub from the deep ocean:
GlomarExplorerSpecs
GlomarExplorerSpecs
Flying Phil said:
Those specs are awesome! I hadn't realised that the entire derrick structure was pivoted and that gigantic roller bearing........What you could do with CIA money........What are they doing now?
The bearing itself was a work of art, and brilliantly clever to power the centre race so that static friction is removed!(bearings don't like being stationary, as they are designed with rolling elements that entrain oil etc, so big bearings used for low speed applications are a 'mare, and can brinell their bearing races under pointloads, and lock up under static friction. To overcome that, that huge "semistatic" bearing used 3 races, where the middle race is spun by a hydraulic motor, so the bearing elements are moving all the time at a decent velocity! )
Without wishing to derail the OPs thread, i love the fact project Azorian was "hidden in plain sight"
For example, Journo's were invited to see and photograph the "equipment barge" used to load "mining equipment" into the moon pool of the HGE. Take a look at this picture:
What do you see? a large structure? Look closely, hmm, wonder what those pivot points could be used for?
Later de-classified pics give the game away:
Amazing engineering.
For example, Journo's were invited to see and photograph the "equipment barge" used to load "mining equipment" into the moon pool of the HGE. Take a look at this picture:
What do you see? a large structure? Look closely, hmm, wonder what those pivot points could be used for?
Later de-classified pics give the game away:
Amazing engineering.
Condi said:
And yet for all that, it dropped the really desirable bit back to the ocean floor.
yup, hundreds of millions of dollars (around $1B in todays money) and they messed it up (or did they?? lol)The real issue was that the project was compromised and the papers found out about it, hence it over night made the HGE useless, as it could no longer go anywhere without a russian "escort". There were plans to go back and retrieve the dropped portion, but that was scuppered! The HGE sat around for over 20 years before anyone knew what to do with it after that!
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