What precious stones are found in the Namib desert of Africa
"wetlands, and mudflats located along the shore attract hundreds of thousands of birds. 'Namib' means ""open space"", and the Namib Desert gave its name to form Namibia – ""land of open spaces"". The park was established in 1907 when the German Colonial Administration proclaimed the area between the Swakop River and the Kuiseb River a game reserve. The park's present boundaries were established in 1978 by the merging of the Namib Desert Park, the Naukluft Mountain Zebra Park and parts of Diamond Area 1 and some other bits of surrounding government land. The park has some of the most unusual"
"commercial sales of blister copper, Tsumeb is noted for its mineralogical diversity, having provided innumerable specimens of unique or rare minerals to the world's museums. Tsumeb therefore also deserves to achieve the status of a geosite. Other locations in Namibia that are of geological significance include traces of Triassic dinosauromorpha at Otjihaenamparero in central Namibia; the Fish River Canyon in southern Namibia is the second largest canyon of the world and is famous for its scenic beauty. Geology of Namibia The geology of Namibia encompasses rocks of Paleoproterozoic, Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic to Cenozoic age. About 46% of the"
"Spitzkoppe The Spitzkoppe (from German for """"pointed dome""""; also referred to as Spitzkop, Groot Spitzkop, or the ""Matterhorn of Namibia""), is a group of bald granite peaks or inselbergs located between Usakos and Swakopmund in the Namib desert of Namibia. The granite is more than 120 million years old and the highest outcrop rises about above sea level. The peaks stand out dramatically from the flat surrounding plains. The highest peak is about above the floor of the desert below. A minor peak – the Little Spitzkoppe – lies nearby at an elevation of . Other prominences stretch out into"
"Okorusu Fluorspar Mine produces high quality acid-grade fluorspar. The Okanjande graphite deposit near Otjiwarongo is composed of high quality flake graphite, but the mine has not yet gone into operation. Wollastonite is produced in the Usakos area. Namibia also produces a variety of semi-precious stones through both small and medium scale mining. tourmaline, aquamarine, heliodore, morganite, rose quartz, smoky quartz, garnet, chrysocolla and dioptase are quarried in various parts of the country. Marble, granite and other dimension stone for export or local processing are produced between Swakopmund and Karibib. The Namibian Atlantic margin is conjugate with the Pelotas Basin of"
"found in the Sperrgebiet. Under Namibian law, the Namibian government is entitled to all the items found on board. Today, there are several ghost towns in the Sperrgebiet, built in the late 19th century, the best known of these being Kolmanskop and others including Pomona and Elizabeth Bay. The wind has partially excavated a number of half-mummified bodies at a graveyard outside one of these ghost towns. Sperrgebiet The Sperrgebiet (German, meaning ""Prohibited Area"") (also known as Diamond Area 1) is a diamond mining area in southwestern Namibia, in the Namib Desert. It spans the Atlantic Ocean-facing coast from Oranjemund"
"Geology of Namibia The geology of Namibia encompasses rocks of Paleoproterozoic, Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic to Cenozoic age. About 46% of the countryʼs surface are bedrock exposure, while the remainder is covered by the young overburden sediments of the Kalahari and Namib deserts. The country is famous for its mineral deposits of Tsumeb, as well as many geological sites of interest, from paleontological, geomorphological and volcanic character. Due to the exposure of the formations in a desert climate and the former German colony, the geology of Namibia is relatively well studied compared to the more tropical less exposed northern"
"Namib desert in southwestern Africa known as Diamond Area 1 and 2. The territory, estimated at over 40,000 square miles and sealed off since 1908, contains the world’s largest and richest computer-controlled diamond mine. ""Hysteria"" (1998–2000) uses film footage from the past four decades that shows audiences at pop and rock concerts working themselves into a frenzy on four screens in an X formation. Filmed and photographed in the dusty sound stages and film sets of Bombay, ""Into the Sun"" (1999) focuses on the frenetic activity of Bollywood, recreating the sound stages of the Indian film industry with canvas projection"
"Additionally, all meteorites found in Namibia are automatically protected as National Monuments and must not be removed from where they have been found, nor damaged in any way. The fragments of the meteorite in the strewn field are dispersed over an elliptical area long and wide. The core of this area is situated near the village of Gibeon in Namibia's Hardap Region. About 100–150 different fragments have been collected over time, and additional pieces are found occasionally. The term Gibeon encompasses the whole meteoritic material fallen from the sky during this fall. This material is classified as iron meteorite belonging"
"region hold rich reserves of minerals, particularly diamonds. Namibia is world-renowned for the gem quality diamonds that occur along the Orange River and both onshore and offshore of the coast. As onshore diamond reserves are depleted, future diamond production will predominantly come from the seabed. Mid-water to deep-water mining operations require sophisticated marine vessels and crawlers that are capable of retrieving diamondiferous gravels/sands from the seafloor. Phosphate deposits found at depths of 180 to 300 m have attracted interest but the Namibian government has announced a moratorium on phosphate mining in order to conduct a study on the potential impacts"
"to Mesoproterozoic rocks locally contain extensive red bed copper, while calc-alkaline units of the same age have potential for porphyry and hydrothermal copper, as well as vein-type gold mineralization. Namibia is one of the major producers of diamonds, 95% of which are of gem quality. The bulk of the countryʼs known diamonds occur along the southern coastline, north of the Orange River mouth. The diamonds originated in the interior of southern Africa and were transported by the Orange River to the Atlantic coast, where they were deposited within beach sediments. Almost the entire coastline is covered by exploration and mining"
"due to a destructive earthquake that had occurred the previous day in Armenia, but which was recorded strongly on the seismograph in Windhoek. The petrified forest near Khorixas in northwest Namibia is an impressive paleontological monument, which may serve as an already well protected geological site. Similarly, the Hoba Meteorite in northern Namibia, which is the largest known iron meteorite on Earth, is well protected as a national monument and attracts many visitors at the site and in the museum. The famous copper deposit at Tsumeb in northern Namibia was closed as a mine in 1996, but in addition to"
"which has led to the reason behind several uranium projects being abandoned. Experts say that the prices are expected to rise in the next 3 years because of an increase in nuclear activities from both Japan and China. The mining industry in Namibia is supposedly going to reach US1.79bn by the year 2018. Diamond production totalled 1.5 million carats (300 kg) in 2000, generating nearly $500 million in export earnings. Other important mineral resources are uranium, copper, lead, and zinc. The country also extracts gold, silver, tin, vanadium, semiprecious gemstones, tantalite, phosphate, sulphur, and mines salt. Namibia is the fourth-largest"
"licenses. Offshore mining techniques have been pioneered in Namibia and the country has firmly been established as the world leader in marine diamond mining. Inland, in the vicinity of Gibeon, 60 barren pipes of kimberlite of post-Karoo age have been identified. The northeast of the country also hosts some kimberlites, which are currently being explored for their diamond potential. The main occurrences of gold are in the Karibib and Rehoboth regions, the Omaruru area and the Kunene region. Silver is present in several deposits mined principally for their copper, lead and zinc contents. It is found in the ore bodies"
"the area until the 1990s, when the Namibian government purchased a fifty percent stake. They formed a joint partnership called the Namdeb Diamond Corporation. The ""Sperrgebiet"" has a diverse range of flora and fauna, due to little human intervention in the area for 100 years. Forty percent of the landscape is desert, thirty percent is grassland, and twenty-eight percent is rocky. Roter Kamm, an impact crater in the southern Namib Desert within Sperrgebiet, has a diameter of 2,5 km. In the Sperrgebiet you find the Tsaus Mountains, Mount Aurus, Mount Heioab, Mount Höchster, the Klinghardt Mountains and the permanent water"
"National Park is located here. The Namibian coastal deserts are the richest source of diamonds on earth, making Namibia the world's largest producer of diamonds. It is divided into the northern Skeleton Coast and the southern Diamond Coast. Because of the location of the shoreline—at the point where the Atlantic's cold water reaches Africa—there is often extremely dense fog. Sandy beach comprises 54% and mixed sand and rock add another 28%. Only 16% of the total length is rocky shoreline. The coastal plains are dune fields, gravel plains covered with lichen and some scattered salt pans. Near the coast there"
"rate of consumption. Experts estimate that Namibia has of underground water. Providing 25% of Namibia's revenue, mining is the single most important contributor to the economy. Namibia is the fourth largest exporter of non-fuel minerals in Africa and the world's fourth largest producer of uranium. There has been significant investment in uranium mining and Namibia is set to become the largest exporter of uranium by 2015. Rich alluvial diamond deposits make Namibia a primary source for gem-quality diamonds. While Namibia is known predominantly for its gem diamond and uranium deposits, a number of other minerals are extracted industrially such as"
"The prominent attraction is the famous Sossusvlei area, where high orange sand dunes surround vivid white salt pans, creating a fascinating landscape. Access to the park is either by gravel roads or dust roads (except for 60 km of concrete road from the Sesriem gate to Sossusvlei) or by light aircraft from Windhoek (the capital of Namibia, about north-east of the centre of the desert), or Swakopmund and Walvis Bay at the north end of the desert. Namib The Namib is a coastal desert in southern Africa. The name ""Namib"" is of Nama origin and means ""vast place"". According to"
"in Southern Africa. To the south, the Namib borders on the South African Karoo semi-desert. Southern Namib (between Lüderitz and the Kuiseb River) comprises a vast dune sea with some of the tallest and most spectacular dunes of the world, ranging in color from pink to vivid orange. In the Sossusvlei area, several dunes exceed in height. The complexity and regularity of dune patterns in its dune sea have attracted the attention of geologists for decades, but it remains poorly understood. Moving north from Sossusvlei, the sand gradually gives way to a rocky desert that extends all the way from"
"Namib Desert Horse The Namib Desert Horse is a rare feral horse found in the Namib Desert of Namibia, Africa. It is probably the only feral herd of horses residing in Africa, with a population ranging between 90 and 150. The Namib Desert Horse is athletic in appearance, resembling the European light riding horses from which it probably descends, and usually dark in color. Despite the harsh environment in which they live, the horses are generally in good condition, except during times of extreme drought. The horses have been the subject of several population studies, which have given significant insight"
"Sperrgebiet The Sperrgebiet (German, meaning ""Prohibited Area"") (also known as Diamond Area 1) is a diamond mining area in southwestern Namibia, in the Namib Desert. It spans the Atlantic Ocean-facing coast from Oranjemund on the border with South Africa, to around north of Lüderitz, a distance of north. The Sperrgebiet extends to around inland, and its total area of , makes up three percent of Namibia's land mass. However, mining only takes place in five percent of the Sperrgebiet, with most of the area acting as a buffer zone. Members of the public are banned from entering most of the"
"resources that had not been fully exploited by the early twenty- first century . These include manganese, copper, gold, phosphates, granite, marble, uranium, quartz, lead, zinc, wolfram, tin, fluorite, sulfur, feldspar, kaolin, mica, asphalt, gypsum, and talc. The government hopes to resume mining in the southwest for crystalline quartz and ornamental marble. It has been estimated that 5,000 cubic meters of marble could be extracted annually for a period of twenty years. A state-owned company mined granite and marble in Huíla and Namibe Provinces, and in 1983 it produced 4,450 cubic meters of granite and 500 cubic meters of marble."
"Light of the Desert The Light of the Desert is a cerussite gem in the Royal Ontario Museum's collection. It is the world’s largest faceted example of cerussite, weighing 898 carats (6.3 ounces). The word ""cerussite"" comes from the Latin meaning ""white lead""; the mineral is a lead carbonate with the chemical formula of PbCO. The raw cerussite was discovered in Tsumeb in northern Namibia and acquired by a gem cutter from Arizona who then cut the raw material into the gem on display. The cutting and transport of this gem is a delicate business as cerussite is extremely fragile"
"these gems went out of style. More stones were found in the Bobrovka River in the 1970s and 1980s. Around 1999, very limited production occurred in the central Ural Mountains. Many of the stones found then are for sale today. Mining takes place along the rivers today, but some mining is still done secretively. A significant new find of demantoid and andradite took place in Namibia in 1996 at what is now dubbed the ""Green Dragon"" mine. In addition to the commercially-important deposits in Russia and Namibia, demantoids are also found in some other places, including Italy (Val Malenco, Lombardy),"
"inland to the foot of the Great Escarpment. Annual precipitation ranges from in the most arid regions to at the escarpment, making the Namib the only true desert in southern Africa. Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for roughly 55–80 million years, the Namib may be the oldest desert in the world and contains some of the world's driest regions, with only western South America's Atacama Desert to challenge it for age and aridity benchmarks. The desert geology consists of sand seas near the coast, while gravel plains and scattered mountain outcrops occur further inland. The sand dunes, some of"
"Namib The Namib is a coastal desert in southern Africa. The name ""Namib"" is of Nama origin and means ""vast place"". According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba River in Angola, through Namibia and to the Olifants River in Western Cape, South Africa. The Namib's northernmost portion, which extends from the Angola-Namibia border, is known as Moçâmedes Desert, while its southern portion approaches the neighboring Kalahari Desert. From the Atlantic coast eastward, the Namib gradually ascends in elevation, reaching up to"
"was discovered the next morning by a farmer and three sons. Mukurob The Mukurob, also Mukorob, (Finger of God) near Asab in Namibia, was a sandstone rock formation in the Namib desert which collapsed on 7 December 1988. Mukurob consisted mostly of sandstone. The structure was 12 m high and up to 4.5 m wide, and weighed some 450 tons. What made Mukorob so special, however, was its base. Just 3 m long and 1.5 m wide, it was much narrower than the mass of rock which it supported. Mukurob was once part of the Weissrand Plateau before 50,000 years"
"this makes it a very special area"". It has more biodiversity than anywhere else in Namibia, supporting animals such as the gemsbok, springbok, and brown hyena. Bird species resident in the ""Sperrgebiet"" include the African oystercatcher, the black-headed canary, and the dune lark. The Sperrgebiet was designated as a national park in June 2004. De Beers still controls the area, but will relinquish control to the Namibian Ministry for Environment and Tourism once a management plan for the park has been completed. In April 2008, a 500-year-old shipwreck named Bom Jesus containing Iberian coins, bronze cannons, copper, and ivory was"
"Martyn Marriott, stated: ""It's well known they're the finest diamonds in the world - the highest quality, best colour, lovely diamonds. They are water-worn, thrown up into the beach and a very nice shape. They just happen to be good quality and good colour as well. The diamonds from Namibia are worth an average $200 per carat whereas the diamonds from Zaïre would be worth $8 per carat."" Businessman Eric Lang said: ""Successive Administrator-Generals allowed the mining companies to get away with exporting 20-25% of production without any control whatsoever."" Lang threatened to release Namibia's mineral statistics, to which countries"
"Namib-Naukluft National Park The Namib-Naukluft Park is a national park of Namibia encompassing part of the Namib Desert (considered the world's oldest desert) and the Naukluft mountain range. With an overall area of , the Namib-Naukluft is the largest game park in Africa and the fourth largest in the world. The most well-known area of the park is Sossusvlei, which is the main visitor attraction in Namibia. A surprising collection of creatures survives in the hyper-arid region, including snakes, geckos, unusual insects, hyenas, gemsboks and jackals. More moisture comes in as a fog off the Atlantic Ocean than falls as"
"to the chemical group IVA. Gibeon meteorites are composed of an iron-nickel alloy containing significant amounts of cobalt and phosphorus. The crystal structure of this meteorite provides a classic example of fine octahedrite and the Widmanstätten pattern is appreciated for its beauty both by collectors and designers of jewelry. Gibeon (meteorite) Gibeon is a meteorite that fell in prehistoric times in Namibia. It was named after the nearest town: Gibeon. The meteorite was discovered by the Nama people and used by them to make tools and weapons. In 1836 the English captain J. E. Alexander collected samples of the meteorite"
"north-east Africa. These appear to be remnants of a hypothesised arid-track joining the two areas. Brandberg Mountain The Brandberg (Damara: Dâures; ) is Namibia's highest mountain. Brandberg Mountain is located in former Damaraland, now Erongo, in the northwestern Namib Desert, near the coast, and covers an area of approximately 650 km². With its highest point, the Königstein ""(German for 'King's Stone')"", standing at above sea level and located on the flat Namib gravel plains, on a clear day 'The Brandberg' can be seen from a great distance. There are various routes to the summit, the easiest (also steepest) being up"
"contact with humans. This also included closer contact with tourists to Namibia, who frequently see them at the watering area at Garub and near the main road that traverses their grazing grounds. While the horses are credited with bringing tourist dollars to Namibia, there are also concerns about negative horse-human interactions, including vehicle accidents, disruption to sensitive areas by people looking for the horses and disruption of herd dynamics due to becoming too used to or dependent upon humans. Namib Desert Horse The Namib Desert Horse is a rare feral horse found in the Namib Desert of Namibia, Africa. It"
"and offers grade 8 to Grade 10. Karibib is home to Usab Stadium. There is a golf course at the Klippenberg Country Club. Karibib Karibib is a town in the Erongo Region of western Namibia. It has 3,800 inhabitants and owns of town land. Karibib is the district capital of the Karibib electoral constituency. It is situated on the Khan River, halfway between Windhoek and Swakopmund on the B2 (Trans-Kalahari Highway), the main road between the Walvis Bay and Johannesburg. The town is known for its aragonite marble quarries and the Navachab Gold Mine. Karibib was a waterhole known to"