“There had been a quantity of false starts, corresponding to discovering the Ellendale area which proved to be uneconomic. It was a bleak time before they found the actual deposit, with this unbelievable focus of diamonds. Almost immediately there were claim-jumpers who tried to grab the rights to the deposit,” says Prof Kells. Visible from area, it almost doubled the world’s diamond output within the Eighties and ’90s; by 1986, it had made Australia the world’s main diamond producer, according to the Gemological Institute of America . Measuring approximately 50 hectares, with a depth of 600m, the Argyle Mine was…