Canada’s Lucara Diamond Corporation recently discovered in Botswana a 2,492 carat diamond, the second-largest rough diamond ever found. “We are still in the early stages of analyzing the stone,” according to a company spokesperson. “Visual inspection does indicate that the internals of the stone are relatively clean.”
The epic gem was discovered at the Karowe mine which has produced at least five diamonds weighing over 1,000 carats each since its acquisition by Lucara in 2009. The 1758 carat Sewelo, or “rare find,” discovered in 2019, was sold to Louis Vuitton, and the 1109 carat Lesedi La Rona, produced in 2017, was acquired by Graff for $53 million.
“This find not only showcases the remarkable potential of our Karowe mine but also upholds our strategic investment in cutting-edge XRT technology,” revealed Lucara’s CEO William Lamb. This emerging X ray transmission technology is recently under wider use to discover and preserve large diamonds before mining, minimizing the danger of them being destroyed through the mining process before acquisition.
President Masisi of Botswana, when presented with the half kilogram treasure, gasped and said “wow” before calling senior government officials over to take a closer look. “It is overwhelming,” Masisi said. “I am lucky to have seen it in my time.”
But who’s number one? That honor goes to the Cullinan, weighing in at 3106 carats, the largest gem-quality diamond ever found. Discovered in Cullinan, South Africa (named for the Chairman of the mining company), it’s celebrated for its blue-white color and exceptional clarity, spawning the designation “CLIPPIR” for large, pure, rare diamonds of this type “Cullinan-like, Large, Inclusion-Poor, relatively Pure, Irregularly-shaped and Resorbed.”
The exceptional rough gem was cut by the Asschers of Amsterdam, the leading cutters of their day. From the Royal Collection Trust: “It took four days to prepare the groove for the cleaving knife, and the very first blow broke the knife rather than the diamond. Over the next eight months, three men worked for 14 hours a day to cut and polish nine large stones from the original diamond,” now at the heart of the British Crown Jewels, including the Cullinan I, at 530 carats, the largest clear cut diamond in the world, crowning the Sovereign’s Sceptre.
What other treasures may lie beneath us? According to new studies from Ulrich Faul’s team from MIT and other leading universities, there may be “quadrillions of tons of diamonds” hidden in the Earth’s interior. The ultradeep cache may be scattered within “cratonic roots” – the oldest sections of rock that lie beneath the center of most continental tectonic plates.
Scientists estimate that cratonic roots may contain 1 to 2 percent diamond. Considering the total volume of cratonic roots in the Earth, the team figures that about a quadrillion tons of diamond are scattered within these ancient rocks, 90 to 150 miles below the surface. “This shows that diamond is not perhaps this exotic mineral, but on the vast scale of things, it’s relatively common,” says Ulrich Faul. “We can’t get at them, but still, there is much more diamond there than we have ever thought before.”
First discovered through “alluvial” mining, actually lying on the surface of the Earth, in rivers, diamonds were next mined by digging deeper in subterranean “pipes.” But we’re still scratching the surface. The infinite wealth of diamonds may be all around us, comprising 1-2 percent of the Earth’s mantle. Do you have diamonds in your own back yard? As in all true ground-breaking discovery, you may need to dig a little deeper for the true treasures to be revealed.
