Diamonds In The Rough

For people that love diamonds, you might be interested to know that what a diamond looks like when it is first taken from the ground and how it looks when it is nicely cut and polished on your ring are strikingly different.

Diamonds are considered the hardest substance in the world. A diamond is made from carbon, one of the natural elements; a natural diamond can take millions of years to form and requires lots of pressure and an incredible amount of heat to cause the carbon to crystallize. The only thing that can cut a diamond is another diamond. While most consumers are familiar with diamonds that are used for jewelry, most of the diamonds that are unearthed are smaller in size and less attractive than those sold for jewelry and thus mainly used for industrial or commercial purposes. Today, about 50% of diamonds come from mines in Africa. However, diamonds can be found in mines all over the world including India, Russia, Canada and Australia. Most diamonds are hidden deep within the earth, usually only accessible by deep mines. Most mines are located in Africa, with the country of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana being the top producers. It is important to note that due to many nations in Africa being politically unstable, only a handful of diamond producing nations are allowed to sell their diamonds to the open market. The other nations that produce diamonds from their mines are called conflict diamonds and have specific sanctions against them, not allowing them to be sold.

Diamonds are usually mined by removing diamond ore from the mines and sifting through it via a process called diamond crushing. Diamond crushing is not as destructive as it sounds, usually diamond crushing takes into consideration larger size diamonds in order not to destroy valuable diamonds. From diamond crushing, the ore is sorted by density and diamonds are easily able to be picked out.

During the sorting process either X-ray fluorescence or grease belts are used to separate true diamonds from diamond ore. Diamonds easily stick to greasy materials than the other components of the ore. Today most mines use X-ray fluorescence rather than grease belts to sift and sort diamonds. Once diamonds are sifted and sorted thoroughly, a decision is made on whether the diamond fits the specs to be used as jewelry or solely for industrial use.