Eira thomas biography of nancy

Geologists around the world are lucky if they ever see one of their discoveries turn into an active mine. Still in her forties, Eira Thomas—nicknamed Canada’s Queen of Diamonds—has “hit pay dirt”, as prospectors say, four times in her career.

Thomas’s most famous discovery was one she worked on with her father, Grenville Thomas.

Eira thomas biography of nancy

She was only 21, fresh out of university with a degree in geology, when her father called while she was travelling in South Africa. “I was like, ‘Diamonds in Northern Canada, Dad, really?’” she recalls. Returning to Canada in late 1991, she immediately began prospecting a massive region north of Yellowknife that would become, when she was 25, the Diavik Diamond Mine, one of the world’s richest diamond mines by grade, even supplying a few stones to Harry Winston.

A string of successes unprecedented for a female exploration geologist followed.

She left the company that owns Diavik and then co-founded Stornoway Diamond Corporation; before leaving