earth science

Hugo Dummett

Hugo Dummett is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hugo Dummett rather than just read about it. In short: Hugo T. Dummett (1940–2002) was a South African mineral-exploration geologist who is best known for his role in the discovery of the Ekati Diamond Mine in the Barren Lands of Canada's Northwest Territories.

Key takeaways

Hugo Dummett belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hugo Dummett to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hugo Dummett from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hugo T. Dummett (1940–2002) was a South African mineral-exploration geologist who is best known for his role in the discovery of the Ekati Diamond Mine in the Barren Lands of Canada's Northwest Territories. Dummett has been described as "the brains, the ideas and the energy" behind the discovery of Ekati, which led to the creation of a new Canadian diamond-mining industry.

Career Dummett earned his BSc degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1964, and moved to Canada in 1965 and attended Queen's university at Kingston, where he was a star rugby player playing fullback. In 1970, he entered the University of Queensland for graduate work. In 1977, Dummett signed on with Superior Oil to prospect for diamonds in North America, just as the science of using indicator minerals -- pyrope garnets, chrome diopside and chromite—for diamond exploration was being worked out. Superior formed a joint venture with Falconbridge Limited, and the joint venture hired geologist Charles Fipke for the diamond exploration project. Early in the program, Dummett tried to convince Governor Bill Clinton to lease Arkansas's Crater of Diamonds State Park. Between 1979 and 1982, the partners found at least 20 kimberlite pipes, but none had commercial diamond potential. The Falconbridge-Superior joint venture then funded a research program by South African geochemist John Gurney, to study possible indicator minerals for diamondiferous pipes. By 1982, Gurney had established that the kimberlite pyrope garnet "G10" was critical to diamond discovery. Pipes without the G10 garnet were likely to be barren. Using this new technology, the venture discovered a promising pipe in eastern Botswana, but lost the land to De Beers, who later discovered a commercial diamond deposit there. Mobil Oil then bought Superior, and ended its mineral exploration program in 1987. Dummett convinced Mobil to turn over its data to Fipke so the exploration effort could continue. Fipke and his partner Stewart Blusson, working on a small budget, staked some promising ground near Lac de Gras in 1989. Dummett took a new job with BHP in 1989, and convinced his new employer to lease their property. In 1991, BHP drilling on their leased claims found micro-diamonds, sparking one of largest claimstaking rushes in mining history. Under Dummet's direction, BHP eventually developed commercial diamond reserves in five pipes; the discovery pipe turned out to be non-commercial. BHP began the permitting process for the Ekati Diamond Mine in 1995, received final approval in 1997, and opened the mine late in 1998. By 2009, annual sales from EKATI amounted to about 5% by value of world diamond production.

In 2001, Dummett joined Ivanhoe Mines as Vice President. He contributed to the discovery of a large porphyry copper-gold deposit that was renamed in his honor, at the advanced Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia. Dummett was killed in an automobile accident in South Africa in August 2002.

Honors and awards Hugo Dummett won The Northern Miner's "Mining Man of the Year" award for 1998. In 2002 Dummett was President of the Society of Economic Geologists. The Far North Zone of the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold deposit in South Gobi, Mongolia was renamed the Hugo Dummett Deposit in 2003 by his last employer, Ivanhoe Mines. The Oyu Tolgoi mining project is the largest financial undertaking in Mongolia's history, and is projected upon completion to account for more than 30% of the country's economy. The Hugo Dummett Diamond Award was established in his honor in 2004 by the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia. Dummett was inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame in 2010. Dummett has also received the William Lawrence Saunders Gold Medal (1997) and the Daniel C. Jackling Award (2000), among other awards and honors.

References

Further reading Kevin Krajick, Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic. 2001, Freeman/Henry Holt, ISBN 0-7167-4026-5. Review at the Wayback Machine (archived February 12, 2002) at Smithsonian The Story of Indicator Minerals - Pyrope Garnet (G10), by Bryson Burke Diamond Corporation

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hugo Dummett

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hugo Dummett claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hugo Dummett before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hugo Dummett ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hugo Dummett

In research: Hugo Dummett appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hugo Dummett in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hugo Dummett is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940 births, 2002 deaths, 20th-century geologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hugo Dummett outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hugo Dummett in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hugo Dummett means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hugo Dummett out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hugo Dummett in simple terms?

Why does Hugo Dummett matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hugo Dummett?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hugo Dummett.