Women at the dawn of diamond discovery in Siberia or how two women discovered the Siberian diamond province

Abstract

AbstractExploration for diamonds in the Soviet Union started in the 1940s; however, it was not until the beginning of 1950s that the government acknowledged a strong need for locally mined diamonds. In this paper, based on publications from Russian literature, we recount a story of two female geologists, Larisa Popugaeva and Natalia Sarsadskhih.Natalia was the head of the mineralogical laboratory who implemented a new methodology to search for mineral indicators of primary diamond deposits. Larisa was a young geologist who joined Natalia's team in 1953.The work of these women led to the discovery, in 1954, of the first diamond deposit in the country – the kimberlite pipe ‘Zarnitsa’. In 1954, Natalia was unable to go into the field and, therefore, the discovery was made by Larisa. Credit for this discovery, however, was claimed by the higher officials from the Amakinskaya expedition, one of the largest diamond exploration organizations in the country. Multiple efforts to restore justice did not succeed, with Larisa only being awarded the title of the ‘Discoverer’ in 1970 and Natalia not until 1990. This paper provides a description of Larisa's and Natalia's lives up until the discovery of Zarnitsa, and a few significant events after.