Rare 20-Carat Blue Diamond Most Expensive Ever?

    • TNN
    • Publish Date: Apr 24 2019 3:07PM
    • |
    • Updated Date: Apr 24 2019 3:07PM
Rare 20-Carat Blue Diamond Most Expensive Ever?

Botswana unveiled an extremely rare rock, a "fancy deep blue" diamond called the Okavango Blue.

It's the largest blue diamond ever to be discovered in the country, and exceeds the clarity of its already famous predecessor, the Hope Diamond.


The massive hunk of ice weighs more than 20 carats and, according to the Okavango Diamond Co., has a "unique and vibrant blue color created by the molecular inclusion of the rare mineral boron which between 1-3 billion years ago was present in the rocks of ancient oceans during violent diamond forming volcanic activity."

The oval-shaped diamond was discovered as a 41.11 carat rough gem, that was then cut and polished, retaining 20.46 carats. This means it's much smaller than the Hope Diamond, which weighs 45.52 carats, housed at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. However, the Okavango Diamond was graded purer by the California-based Gemological Institute of America (GIA)

GIA has graded it as "Very, Very Slightly Included," or VVS2. That means the inclusions, the professional term for a diamond's internal imperfections, are "difficult for a skilled grader to see under 10x magnification." The Hope Diamond on the other hand is only VS1 or "Very Slightly Included", meaning its inclusions are minor and range from difficult to somewhat easy for a skilled grader to see under 10x magnification."

The Okavango Diamond is an incredibly rare find "About as rare as a star in the Milky Way," according to Okavango Diamond Co. Managing Director Marcus ter Haar. "It is little surprise blue diamonds are so sought after around the world as only a very small percentage of the world's diamonds are classified as fancy color."

Blue diamonds are some of the rarest precious stones in existence, making up only about 2/100ths of 1 percent of all those mined. Thanks to that, once it eventually finds a suitable buyer and price, the diamond could go for millions of dollars. The Cullinan Dream, a 24.18 carat blue diamond of VS1 quality, sold for a whopping $25.3 million back in 2016, breaking the record for the most expensive gem of its kind ever sold. And the Okavango Blue could be worth much much more.

How do these hardest substance known to man form?
Diamonds are basically incredibly dense crystal formations of elemental carbon. They have the the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any natural material, meaning they have more worth than just jewellery. They're regularly used in industrial applications as cutting and polishing tools, as well as in scientific research.
The expensive rocks are formed at anywhere between 150 to 250 km underneath the Earth's surface, though some have emerged from deeper. Subjected to high temperatures and pressures there, they're formed when fluids containing carbon from rocks and the like dissolve minerals. Most of these are believed to have formed billions of years ago. We only find them because, between tens to hundreds of millions, they were thrown up towards the surface by volcanic eruptions

Blue diamonds then are exactly like their transparent cousins but for one major difference. The crystal lattice in these diamonds have been contaminated by trace amounts of boron. This happens because they formed in the lower parts of the Earth's mantle, where oceanic tectonic plates collided, and one slid over the other.
 

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Comments

Neha Varadharajan The Orbis School

Blue diamonds are beautiful!

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