The rocks that we are trawling through on the mine floor have been dislodged using a controlled explosion. The accepted consensus is that fine emeralds are 20 times rarer than fine diamonds, and to visit an emerald mine is to appreciate how truly rare that is. Although they are the more recent to be discovered, east African emeralds are known to be much older than emeralds from other parts of the world, and get their pure green hue from the presence of chromium, iron and beryllium.Įast African emeralds are much older than gems from other parts of the world. And in the reaction zone between the two, one of the most striking substances known to man began to mineralise. Two very different types of rock came into contact – a 500-million-year-old pegmatite containing elements of beryllium and a 1.6-billion-year-old talc-magnetite schist. Half a billion years ago, in the ground beneath me, an incomprehensibly rare occurrence unfolded. I am on the hunt for emeralds.Īn emerald reveals itself in the Chama pit. I step gingerly through puddles, balancing on shards of rock, my eyes peeled to the ground.
Now the rock bed sparkles in the Sun, pieces of mica and quartz catching the light and giving the sludge beneath our feet an otherworldly glow. Courtesy Barry HaydenĪ few minutes earlier, I had watched as a high-pressure water jet was used to spray the ground at one end of the 160-metre-deep pit. About 25 per cent of the world’s emeralds originate here.Ībout 25 per cent of the world's emeralds come from Kagem. This is the beating heart of Zambia’s 41-square-kilometre Kagem mine, a joint venture between Gemfields, a leading supplier of responsibly sourced coloured gemstones, and the government of Zambia. A post shared by LUXURY am in Chama, the world’s largest producing emerald pit.
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