A fancy vivid blue pear-shaped diamond, one of only twelve stones in the De Beers Millennium collection, is soon to go up for bidding. When Sotheby’s holds the auction in Hong Kong next month, the ring is expected to fetch a hefty sum.
The Petra Cullinan Heritage diamond sold at auction for $35.3 million, which is the top price paid for an uncut stone to date. The 507-carat gem will be analyzed extensively – perhaps for months! – before a cut is chosen.
Thousands of jewelry stores have closed over the past two years as the bad economy has slowed spending on luxury goods. An article in The Dallas Morning News explores the problems faced by some major diamond retailers.
An article in a recent issue of Explore, the newsletter of The Association of Applied Geochemists, explains the role of geochemistry in locating diamond-bearing kimberlite deposits in Botswana.
Diamonds are graded using the 4Cs: color, clarity, cut, and carat weight. This video gives a brief overview of these qualities that should be taken into consideration when selecting a diamond.
One of the largest diamonds ever found in North America was found by William “Punch” Jones, a ten-year-old, who was pitching horseshoes with his father in Peterstown, West Virginia in 1928. It was named the “Punch Jones Diamond” after its finder.
The Kimberly Process is a set of standards that a diamond-producing country must meet to assure that the stones are produced legally and without human exploitation. Zimbabwe could be told to stop exporting diamonds until it complies with the KP standards.
One of the largest diamonds in history was discovered at the Cullinan Diamond Mine in South Africa. The 507-carat white stone is one of many spectacular gems from the Cullinan Mine.
The Wyoming Geological Survey has a .pdf booklet titled: “Searching for Placer Diamonds” that you can download and read for free.
It was written by W. Dan Hausel and contains information about recognizing diamonds, prospecting for diamonds, references and a map of the Colorado-Wyoming Kimberlite Province.
CNN has an article about how six people found a fortune. One of the stories is about a person finding a 40.23 carat diamond at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas – the only diamond mine in the world where you can look for diamonds and keep what you find.
Diamonds have lifted the economy of Botswana but the recent recession has cut demand by about 50%. Their response is an attempt to capture the diamond sorting, cutting and selling portions of the trade.
Lonsdaleite diamonds found on California’s Channel Islands are suggestive of a cosmic impact some 12,900 years ago. This impact is one of several theories on how some species became extinct at the end of the ice age.
Diamonds are composed of carbon and many people wonder if diamonds can be burned. Here is a video from The Open University. It shows a diamond being heated with a torch then dropped into liquid oxygen where it burns to produce carbon dioxide gas.
The only producing diamond mine in the United States is the Crater of Diamonds Mine near Murfreesboro, Arkansas. It is also the only diamond mine in the world where you can be the miner.
Diamonds sometimes acquire trapped traces of platinum group elements such as platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium and iridium when they are formed. “When these elements are encapsulated as mineral inclusions in diamonds, their unique isotopic ’signatures’ help geologists determine where the diamonds were formed and how old they are.” Quoted from the NSF release.
What would happen if large, nearly flawless diamonds could be grown at a rate of a millimeter per hour? That day might arrive soon. Diamonds then would have much wider use in industry – but what might happen to the gemstone market?
Earth Observatory published a satellite image of the Jwaneng Diamond Mine, located in south-central Botswana. It shows the deep concentric geometry of the mine, adjacent settling ponds and a nearby community where many of the miners live.
Leadership positions in the gem-quality diamond production race are constantly changing as new discoveries are made and old mines are worked out. This article charts diamond production geographically and over time.
A blue diamond of 7.03 carats was sold for $9.5 million – the highest per carat price ever paid for a gemstone at auction. The stone was produced from the Cullinan mine in South Africa.
A seven-carat blue diamond mined from South Africa will soon be up for auction in Geneva, and is expected to sell at a record price. Its unusual color is caused by the element boron.
One of just three in the world, this red diamond was a big hit with kids visiting the Hixon Gem Vault in Los Angeles. Stolen during World War II it is now on public display.
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