> Some diamonds were formed billions of years ago in space as the carbon-rich atmospheres of dying stars expanded and cooled. In our own planet's lifetime, high-temperatures and pressures in the mantle produced the diamonds that are familiar to us as gems. 5,000 years ago, a large meteorite that struck a carbon-rich sediment on Earth produced an impact diamond.
> Each of these diamonds differs from the others in both composition and genesis, but all are categorized as "diamond" by the authoritative guide to minerals—the International Mineralogical Association's Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification.
I can picture diamond cartel PR departments salivating over this story.
> I can picture diamond cartel PR departments salivating over this story.
I don't doubt it. High valuations for diamonds take a lot of upkeep (I used to be adjacent to the trade back in the 90s/00s). This is an interesting article:
The Diamond Trade: De Beers, Russia, and the Industry Today
(2016)
There was a Reddit AMA from a jewelry store employee a while back that had some interesting tidbits:
> Faceter (gem cutter) here. List of good-colored rare stones: […] Some of these might not be the best for an engagement ring, since they're a bit soft for 24/7 wear. The best options would be Padparadscha sapphire blue color-change garnet., with bixbite as a close third and chrome tanzanite as a fourth.
> If you buy from a big box store, always insist on taking the display piece. […] If you want a jeweler you can trust, look for an AGS certified store. AGS is a non-profit group that certifies stores that adhere to a strict ethical standard on pricing. […]
Impact diamonds are something of a misnomer as cubic kilometers of rock cool quite slowly. What’s interesting isn’t the formation of diamonds which are extremely common, but how they end up close to the surface without breaking down at lower pressures.
Amusingly, despite the tag line diamonds slowly break down at standard pressure and temperature into graphite, they also burn at fairly normal campfire temperatures.
As a rockhound, I find the names of minerals quite laughable. It's like some consortium just picked a random word and added "-ite" ... and presto ... new mineral!
Eager to see the new taxonomy and naming convention. Hopefully it isn't as baroque as O-chem naming!
> “Historical Natural Kinds and Mineralogy: Systematizing contingency in the context of necessity (Cleland,C. E., Hazen, R. M.&S.M. Morrison), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS)(2021) (in press).
But it doesn't seem to be available yet. So why do the press release now... shrug?
These scholar hits[3] look related: "An evolutionary system of mineralogy."'s "Part I", "Part II", and (earlier) "Proposal for a classification of planetary materials based on natural kind clustering". The currently unlinked "Part II" seems available here[4] (and on sci-hub of course).
Here's a GPlates animation[5] (just for pretty) with mineral locations marked, from a recent related paper[6].
> Each of these diamonds differs from the others in both composition and genesis, but all are categorized as "diamond" by the authoritative guide to minerals—the International Mineralogical Association's Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification.
I can picture diamond cartel PR departments salivating over this story.