Kimberlite Kimberlite Kimberlite is an igneous rock, which sometimes contains diamonds. It is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where the discovery of an diamond called the Star of South Africa in 1869 spawned a diamond rush and the digging of the open-pit mine called the Big Hole. Previously, the term kimberlite has been applied to olivine lamproites as Kimberlite II, however this has been in error . Kimberlite occurs in the Earth's crust in vertical structures known as kimberlite pipes, as well as igneous dykes. Kimberlite also occurs as horizontal sills. Kimberlite pipes are the most important
Northern Alberta kimberlite province Northern Alberta kimberlite province The Northern Alberta Kimberlite Province (NAKP) consists of three groups of diatremes or volcanic pipes in north-central Alberta, Canada, most of which are kimberlites and some of which are diamondiferous. They are called the Birch Mountains (BM), Buffalo Head Hills (BHH), and the Mountain Lake cluster (ML), and they were discovered between about 1990 and 1997. Most of the diatremes were emplaced during the Late Cretaceous Epoch (Turonian to Maastrichtian stages) although a few are as young as early Paleocene. The NAKP kimberlite fields are located about to north to northwest of Edmonton in an area