#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The Taimyr Museum of Local Lore invites everyone to a photo exhibition dedicated to the discoverers of the Popigai meteorite crater which was formed after the impact of an asteroid 35 million years ago.
The diameter of the Popigai crater is about 100 kilometers, the depth of the bottom is 200 meters. It is located in the north of Siberia, on the border of the Krasnoyarsk region and Yakutia. In terms of size, it shares the fourth place in the world with the Manicouagan crater in Canada.
The Popigai astroblema – the star wound of the Earth exhibition presents photographs of scientists who in the 70s-80s of the last century participated in expeditions to the Popigai astroblema and studied the diamond content of the crater. It was then that huge reserves of impact diamonds were discovered at the deposits named Udarnoye, Skalnoye, Digoyskoye.
The leader of the first expedition and the discoverer of the Popigai diamond deposit was Victor Masaitis, doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences, chief researcher of the petrology department of the All-Russian Geological Research Institute named after V.I. Karpinsky.
Schoolchildren were the first to get acquainted with the history of the discovery and research of the meteorite crater. The guides told them about the history of the secret settlement of geological prospectors Mayak, the work of the concentration plant in Hatanga, where from 1979 to 1994 they obtained diamond concentrate, from which diamonds were extracted at the metallurgical plant in Kerch.
“Tests of Popigai diamonds showed a wide range of uses – from surgical scalpels, soldering iron tips, high-quality abrasives to deep-hole drills in hard rock and cutters for metal working”, the museum specialists said.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, research and work on the search for diamonds at Popigai crater was stopped, and their results were declassified. The concentration plant was closed.
Earlier we told that on April 2, a meteorite fell 170 kilometers from Hatanga.
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Text: Angelica Stepanova, Photo: taimyr-museum.ru, newsweek.com
