The Incredible Story of a Diamond

The modern world has spoilt us with a vast array of 'luxury' items, fueled by the glitz of social media. But none of them have been able to dethrone the greatest of them all, the epitome of luxury - Diamonds.

Our busy nonconscious lives have made it easy to forget just how incredibly special a diamond is. It's a piece of our amazing planet and our galaxy, and it is undeniably the oldest thing we will ever own in our lives.

A diamond engagement ring with a diamond band.

Diamonds are the only gemstone that is made up of just one element, Carbon. Deep below the Earth's surface, over 3 billion years ago, a rare combination of extreme pressure and heat in the upper mantle forged the carbon atoms into diamond crystals.

This unique molecular structure, where 5 carbon atoms are covalently bonded to each other, is what gives diamond crystals their extreme strength, making them the hardest mineral on Earth. Just 1 carat of a diamond can contain billions of carbon atoms, interlocked in an unbreakable bond.

This is why the Greeks called it 'Adamas', which means indestructible or invincible.

A diamond crystal attached to a diamond-bearing rock. Source: Wikipedia.

At a time when dinosaurs still walked on our planet, violent eruptions from volcanoes spurted these diamond crystals onto the Earth's surface.

Mother nature then took over from here. Torrential rain, cyclones and other weather forces helped to scatter these diamond crystals and diamond-bearing rocks across different terrains, like sandy beaches, river beds and craters of extinct volcanoes.

The erosion caused by sand, rain and wind helped trim off some of the soft rock that covered the diamond crystals, thereby exposing them. This made them easier to find, long before the diamond mining industry developed and the extraction of diamonds was done scientifically.

The 'Lesedi La Rona', a 1109 carat rough diamond. Source: Wikipedia.

Rough diamonds often look like transparent glass-like stones, at times in a triangular pattern, with an oily or milky exterior. The majority of rough diamonds will have a light-brown or light-yellow tint to them, which is caused by trace amounts of other elements that got incorporated into the chemical structure during the diamond crystal's formation.

More often than not, the rough diamond's appearance can be unappealing and unremarkable due to its dull and rugged surface which has almost no sparkle.

This just reaffirms the idiom, "Don't judge a book by its cover". :)

So there you have it, the incredible story of how a diamond came to be. Take a moment to look at the diamond jewellery you're wearing, your wedding ring, your earrings, your pendant, and revel in the awe-inspiring journey of that fascinating gemstone.

We hope you enjoyed reading our first blog post. Stay tuned for the next one!

Cheers,

NR.

Fun Fact: The chances of you finding a rough diamond on the beach or in a stream is about a billion to one. But don't lose hope, after all, we're a country of over a billion people. ;)