Diamonds

As christmas is quickly approching, I was thinking of all the gifts that I'd love to give, but, alas, cannot afford. So instead I thought I'd talk about something that I like. Diamonds.

Ever wonder where a diamond comes from? This is an amazing story of suspense and intrigue. Well maybe...
Ok, the diamond on your hand or on the hand of the person next to you was formed at a very violent place. And no, I don't mean all fo the conflict taking place in Africa over the mining of the diamond. diamonds are formed at a a depth of about 100km (60 miles) down in the mantle of the earth. The diamond itself is a crystallized carbon, which in fact is the hardest known substance on earth. What this means is that a diamond can scratch anything. But then in a moment of great violence, magama and diamonds are thrust up toward the surface through a conduit called a kimberlite pipe. The name kimberlite comes from a town in Africa, Kimberly. Many of these pipes exist in South Africa, but recently, many have been discovered in Brazil and even Canada! The pipes themselves are not very interesting, but as you can see from the diagram, the diamonds are located throughout the pipe- and that is of course what we are all interested in.

The pipe is then mined, and the raw diamonds are found. The diamonds are so valueable that the mining companies often justify the processing of large amounts of rock just to get a few diamonds.


These raw diamonds are then cut to form the many cuts that we enjoy today. I personally like the brilliant cut, below is a guide of how to facet the diamonds: