A Diamond is One-In-A-Million
Diamonds are the subject of much discussion this year, not least because laboratory diamonds have started finding their way into jewelry. Like the emergence of robotics and artificial intelligence makes us reflect on the essence of humanity, the emergence of synthetic diamonds is an opportunity to reflect on what makes a diamond a diamond, and what sets diamonds apart from any other stone.
Diamonds have been around for billions of years, hidden hundreds of miles beneath the Earth’s mantle. In fact, the Earth stopped producing diamonds well before dinosaurs appeared on its surface, which makes the youngest diamonds over one billion years old. The oldest ones can be traced back to before life even appeared on the planet, four billion years ago. Few things accessible to us have been around for so long, unchanged, unaltered. It is — I dare say it — almost a miracle of nature that diamonds ever reached us from the depth of the Earth to play the very special role they have played in human lives for hundreds if not thousands of years.
It took very specific conditions of heat and temperature (no longer existing today) and hundreds of millions of years to create diamonds. It also took a period of exceptional volcanic activity originating from unusually deep in the Earth to bring them up to the surface. These diamondeferous volcanic pipes are what we diamond miners look for when searching for diamonds. They are effectively old volcanic pipes in which diamonds have travelled up to the surface where they have been trapped for millions of years. These diamondiferous pipes are not easy to find. In fact, they are a needle in a haystack. Only one in a hundred volcanic pipes will contain traces of diamonds, and only one in a hundred of those can be mined economically and safely. So, just ten thousand volcanic pipes qualify to become a diamond mine!
It is no wonder that no new large diamond deposit has been found for two decades, and with some existing diamond mines in Russia, Botswana, Canada, Australia, starting to age or nearing closure, diamonds will no doubt become even more rare and more precious. It is this inherent preciousness that makes diamonds special. Yes, they glitter like no other gemstone, they are harder and more durable than anything else on Earth. Most importantly, diamonds are finite because the Earth has stopped producing them and they bring us back to the origin of times, allowing us reflect on ourselves. So what better way to celebrate ourselves and our loved ones than with a diamond? Size, quality, colour and cut don’t matter. Every diamond is a diamond, and each one of them, regardless of size, quality, and price, has an extraordinary story. You can make this story yours.
