Welcome to the Vancouver Kimberlite Cluster!

The Cluster is a UBC-SRK seminar series, to share ideas and stories from diamond exploration, kimberlite geology, mantle petrology and related topics. We meet every one-to-two months for a talk, and a trip to the nearest pub if we meet in person downtown. We aim to gather the many people working on kimberlites, the cratonic mantle and diamonds - everyone is welcome.

The talk schedule for this and past seasons are below. If you want to subscribe to the distribution list, use this link

2024/2025 Season:

Date	Speaker	Title	Abstract
October 17, 2024 6 pm (Pacific Time)	Dr. A. Fulop, PhD, De Beers Canada	New technologies in kimberlite core logging Video	Over the years, core drilling coupled with manual core logging has served as the cornerstone of exploration. Core logging provides subsurface geological information, including the internal waste or dilution estimation for a subsequent diamond potential evaluation. Geological logging is essential, albeit time-consuming, labour-intensive, and subjective, with an inherent degree of bias. Attempting to acquire more objective geoscientific data from the drill core De Beers Exploration tested two rapidly emerging technologies, the hyperspectral imaging and X-ray fluorescence mapping. Large hyperspectral and geochemical datasets on hundreds of drill cores were tested against the geological logs. I present results of these trials and make a case for integration of the datasets and AI - assisted solutions.
December 4, 2024 12 PM (Pacific Time)	E. Thomas (North Arrow Minerals Inc), J. Armstrong, P. Zimnisky	A review of current natural diamond market supply and demand fundamentals Summary of recent diamond exploration world-wide Video	Supply and Demand fundamentals of the diamond industry remain positive, with global inventories of natural rough diamonds on the decline and demand holding steady and positioned to grow in the medium to longer term as macro-economic factors improve. Investment in grass roots diamond exploration globally, however, has been declining steadily over the last decade with few new discoveries to fill the growing supply gap. This presentation will provide an overview of current, global, diamond market trends, including the rise of lab grown diamonds and the evolving requirements to provide assurance on diamond provenance. The role of technology in brown and green fields diamond exploration will form a key role in successful exploration programs. Application of technology is not limited to large multinational companies. Regardless of the region or jurisdiction, the role of technology in exploration, mine and plant designs will be increasingly driven by the application of best international environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards and practices. International banks and lending institutions are placing greater weighting on a Company’s ESG and EISA programs, commitments, and reporting structures and performances as critical aspect of Project financing.
February 13, 2025 12 PM (Pacific Time)	B. Deljanin, Director, Gemmological Research Industries Inc., CGL President	How India's CVD boom is reshaping diamond mining and gemological testing worldwide Video	The talk is a firsthand account of India's Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) diamond boom, based on a recent visit to Surat and its CVD diamond factories. India has emerged as a leading producer of CVD-grown diamonds and is home to numerous processing and cutting centers for both colorless lab-grown and natural diamonds. With production costs for growing, cutting, and processing CVD diamonds reaching a record low of $90 per carat, the competitive pricing has led to the closure of several CVD factories in the USA and Israel. This price shift has also impacted the valuation of natural diamonds and diamond mining operations in Canada. Recent advancements in diamond growth and treatment have made detection of synthetic stones more challenging, prompting gemologists to update appraisal best practices. A growing number of detection tools, employing methods like UV transparency, luminescence, and advanced spectroscopy, have been introduced—over 70 instruments are now available on the market. Despite this, no single tool has proven capable of consistently identifying all synthetic or treated diamonds.
April 16, 2025 12 pm (Pacific Time)	Dr. F. Darbyshire, Professor, Université du Québec à Montréal	What can seismology reveal about the evolution of the cratonic mantle and the distribution of diamonds?	North America and Greenland preserve ~4 billion years of tectonic history, including craton formation, multiple Wilson cycles, and evidence of plume-lithosphere interaction. This makes the region an ideal natural laboratory for studying the formation and evolution of the continental lithosphere, including processes affecting subcratonic lithospheric mantle, and the role of lithospheric architecture in the distribution of critical and precious minerals, including diamonds. In particular, diamond formation requires specific pressure and temperature conditions in a thick, cool continental lithosphere, and later tectonic processes such as hotspot-lithosphere interaction are required to bring diamonds to the surface. Studying deep lithospheric architecture and its relation to surface geological features can only be achieved using geophysical methods, and seismology has proven to be a powerful tool for modelling Earth structure at a variety of scales. The talk will give an overview of recent seismological studies of the eastern Canadian Shield and surrounding regions. I will showcase various recent models of lithospheric architecture based on diverse seismic-tomography and multi-disciplinary techniques. Finally, I will discuss what we have learned from these studies about present-day lithospheric structure, mantle dynamics and implications for mineral prospectivity.