Before:   Digging for sapphires right up to the side of the road.

After:   The same plot a couple of years later, filled in and used for growing fruit.

Before:   An open cast digging during the dry season. No water, no digging.

After:   Six months later, during the monsoon season, the pit has been filled with soil from a new digging.

The edge of the filled pit showing how close to the house they came.

The soil is loaded into a rotating drum and washed using a high pressure hose. The larger rocks roll out the front of the rotating drum, the smaller pieces including the sapphires are separated and drained into a pit next to the drum. These are then pumped up to the pulsating jig outside the pit.

Another view into the pit.

The digger loading soil into the rotating drum.

The pulsating jig outside the pit. The soil and smaller pieces of gravel are pumped up from the pit to the jig. The gem baring gravel collects in the jig's compartments.

At the end of the day the pumps under the jig are shut down and the miners climb onto the jig to sort through the gravel.

Raking through the gravel and picking out the sapphires by hand.

Found one ...

Iron-stained sapphire crystals recovered from the gravel. The types of sapphires are black stars, gold stars, green, orange & blue sapphires.

A green sapphire crystal.

A jig with two sorting compartments, used on larger mining operations.