Health Tips for a Better Life

The Diamonds in the Smithsonian’s Exhibit

The Smithsonian’s Splendor of Diamonds was a display of seven of the rarest diamonds in the world. The diamonds ranged in size from 5.11 carats to 203.04 carats. The exhibit ran from June 27, 2003 to September 15, 2003. The seven diamonds displayed were the Allnatt, the Millennium Star, the Ocean Dream, the Moussaieff Red, the Heart of Eternity, the Steinmetz Pink, and the Pumpkin Diamond.

The Allnatt is a cushion-cut, Fancy Vivid Yellow diamond, as rated by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA.) It is currently owned by the SIBA Corporation and has a mass of 101.29 carats. Its yellow color is due to a certain concentration of Nitrogen impurities within the carbon structure. The Allnatt’s rarity comes from its size and its color- few diamonds with a mass greater than 100 carats can retain such a vivid color, which makes these diamonds perfect for money back guarantee diamonds, since nobody would want to return such a unique diamond.

The Allnatt Diamond

The De Beers Millennium Star is the sixth largest known colorless diamond of gemstone quality that has ever been found.

It is the second largest flawless, colorless pear cut diamond. The lack of color in the Millennium Star means that it is made entirely from crystallized carbon. There are no impurities from other elements, no defects in its structure, no irradiation during the growth process.

The Millennium Star is owned by the De beers company. It originated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the early 1990s. The original diamond was 777 carats (155.4 g.) It went to the Steinmetz group three years to laser-cut and polish the rough crystal to its 203.04 carat pear shape.

There was some debate concerning whether the diamond was a “blood diamond” or a “non conflict diamond” since it was from an area rich in war diamonds, but this truth was never proven and cleared the Kimberley Process.

The Ocean Dream is a 5.51 carat (1.102 g), Fancy Deep Blue-Green diamond, as rated by the GIA. It is one of the rarest diamonds in the world, for it is the only natural diamond known to the GIA to be of a blue-green color. Blue green is normally seen in synthetic or artificially altered diamonds. In order to achieve such a hue, the diamond color must be altered via irradiation. The Ocean Dream was exposed to millions of years of the earth’s natural radiation- causing its blue-green color.

The Moussaieff Red is a 5.11 carat (1.022 g), trilliant cut, fancy red diamond, as rated by the GIA. Red, especially a deep red, is one of the rarest hues found in a diamond. The Moussaieff is the largest Fancy Red diamond that the GIA have ever seen. It was found by a farmer in Brazil in the mid 1990s, where it was purchased as a rough crystal of 13.9 carats (2.78 g) by William Goldberg Diamond Corp. The crystal was cut, polished, and named the Red Shield. It was bought by the Moussaieff Jewelers Ltd and renamed.

The Heart of Eternity is a 27.64 carat (5.528 g), heart cut, Fancy Vivid Blue diamond, rated by the GIA. This diamond originates from South Africa. It was cut by the Steinmetz Company, who sold it to the De Beers Company. The blue color is due to boron impurities in the carbon structure of the diamond. Very few “blue” diamonds are of such vivid color, for often the boron is only located in certain sections of the stone, or the color is extremely desaturated and mixed with shades of gray.

Like many diamonds, the Steinmetz Pink originates from South Africa. It is owned by Steinmetz Company, has a mass of 59.60 carats, and is internally flawless. The GIA diamond rings Institute (the world’s foremost authority on diamonds) confirmed it to be the largest Fancy Vivid Pink diamond that they had ever seen. It took twenty months to prepare, cut, and polish.

At 5.54 carats (1.108g), the Pumpkin Diamond is one of the largest Fancy Vivid Orange diamonds that the GIA have ever rated. It originated from the Central African Republic, where it was cut and polished by William Goldberg. The Pumpkin Diamond was bought by Ronald Winston for 1.3 million dollars, though it is currently valued at three million dollars. It was set in a ring between two white diamonds for actress Halle Berry to wear to the 2002 Oscars.

Allison Ryan is a freelance marketing writer from San Diego, CA. She specializes in gemology, GIA diamond rings, and where to find a non conflict diamond. For a breathtaking selection of diamonds and to learn more about this beautiful stone, stop by http://www.diamondwave.com/.

Diamonds are attractive, mystifying and exceptional. Diamond jewellery is one of the most well known ornaments that insert people’s individuality in a beautiful way. Diamonds have been the most appealing things for women. Their shine and style specifically magnetize a lot of attention.

History of Diamond

It is saying true “Diamond is forever”. When it comes about the history of diamonds, it is one of the most fascinating stone on the earth. They have endured an incredible journey to arrive at us, trance the services of nature, and time. By the hundreds of year, it has been idolize and admired by the lots of culture.Diamond jewellery has been appreciates and wears although the most showed history, though the science and art of cutting loose diamonds is comparatively new and diamond jewellery is the only presented to the common public for more than last 150 years. The qualities are as spanking new and prized today as the moment they were formed billions of years ago. It has been use although the ages as holder of magic powers and unbelievable magnificence.

Diamond is the hardest stones. The word ‘diamond’ is deriving from the Greek word ‘Adams’ which means ‘unbeatable’. The unrelieved beauty, which made diamonds very costly, during the number of centuries. It does not mean that diamond cannot be smashed the only thing is that it is hard to need a correct position where the break shell.
It is conceived that the diamonds were first discovered in India about 3000 years ago. It is also saying that they were measured precious as of their capacity to find light and is used as for ornamentation and as amulet for defense and guarding against evil.

As time moved on to Middle Age, diamonds were further more considered as points of value to a certain extent than stuff of mystic curing power. Because of the rising require and value of diamonds, mine vendor starts disseminating gossips that diamonds were toxic if accepted. This prohibited workers in the mines as of accepting the diamonds for smuggling.

When it comes to the mining and manufacture of fine stone class diamonds Australia is become a contestant. Nowadays, about 49% of diamonds initiate from central and southern Africa though famous resources originate in India, Canada, Russia and Southern America. Very small diamonds, known as “Nano diamonds” or “micro diamonds”, have been originated in collision of volcano craters where meteoroids have discovered the world. So the micro diamonds is now used as the sign of ancient meteoroid impact sites.

Lastly, the very interesting thing is that diamond jewellery is an enormously collectable ornament, which gets traditional class in time. There are numerous cases of vintage fashion jewellery sale going into thousands of dollars.

Then, next time if you are out of buying diamond jewellery, feel glad and actually, you feel pompous that you get a product with a bright history.

Diamonds UK provides you unique collection of Diamond jewellery,diamond engagement rings, bracelets, pendants, earrings, necklaces and several additional miraculous products online. We are glad to present our finest services make more than many years of familiarity on the UK diamond jewellery market.

The diamond is the most important of the gemstones formed when pure carbon
is subjected to high pressures and temperatures of the Earths deep inte-rior.
Microdiamonds have also been produced by meteorite impacts, whereby
the high-pressure collisions fused carbon into diamond dust. Diamonds with
small black inclusions of foreign minerals are used as evidence that continental
material can get trapped in subduction zones and pulled deep down into
the mantle, where high pressures compress carbon atoms into tight crystals.
Diamonds also can be produced synthetically in the laboratory by compressing
carbon to extreme temperatures and pressures.
Diamond crystals are usually six-sided or eight-sided, although they
are often found in distorted and irregular shapes. A diamonds value
depends on its hardness and its brilliance, derived from a high index of
refraction, or bending of light rays, which accounts for its so-called fire
produced by cutting the stone in such a way that light is refracted and highly
dispersed as it passes through the gemstone.The value of a cut diamond
depends on its color, purity, and size, as well as the skill with which it is cut.
In general, the most valuable diamonds are those flawless stones that are
colorless or possess a blue-white color. However, the term blue-white diamond
is sometimes misused by jewelers to describe stones of inferior quality.
A faint straw-yellow color that diamonds often possess detracts from the
gems value.
If diamonds are colored deep shades of yellow, red, green, or blue, they
are called fancy stones and are greatly prized and command very high prices.
Diamonds can be colored deep shades of green by bombardment with nuclear
radiation or blue by exposure to high-energy electrons.A stone colored green
by irradiation can be heated to bring out a deep yellow hue.These artificially
colored stones are difficult to distinguish from natural ones.
Diamonds have been discovered in many localities throughout the
world, but only in a few places are they plentiful enough to be mined commercially.
Most commonly, diamonds are found in alluvial or placer
deposits derived from eroded volcanic mountains.They accumulate in these
deposits because of their inert chemical nature, great hardness, and fairly
high density. The earliest diamonds were mined from stream gravels in the
southern and central portions of India. An estimated 12 million carats (the
carat is a unit of weight for gemstones equal to 0.2 gram) was produced
from Indian mines. India was virtually the only source of diamonds until
they were discovered in Brazil in 1725. East central Brazil has produced
about 160,000 carats annually, chiefly from stream gravels near the city of
Diamantina, Minas Gerais.
Today, about 95 percent of the worlds output of diamonds is from
Africa.The Congo is by far the largest producer, supplying more than 50 percent
of the global demand.The diamonds are mostly industrial grade, used for
cutting tools, and represent only a fraction of the worlds total value of diamonds
produced. Industrial diamonds are also produced synthetically by subjecting
pure carbon to extreme temperatures and pressures similar to those
found deep inside the Earth. Several million carats are manufactured yearly,
but these diamonds are not suitable for cutting into gemstones because of
their small size.
Although some gem quality diamonds are still recovered from gravels,
the principal South African production is from kimberlite pipes,
named for the town of Kimberley, South Africa. They are composed of
jumbled fragments of mantle rocks, which are believed to have originated
as deep as 150 miles below the surface.The intrusive bodies vary in size and
shape, although many are roughly circular and pipe-shaped. Prospecting in
South Africa for diamonds has uncovered over 700 kimberlite pipes and
other intrusive bodies. However, most of these were found to be barren of
diamonds.
The kimberlite deposits were originally worked as open pits, but as the
mines became deeper, underground mining methods had to be employed. At
the Kimberley mine, the worlds deepest diamond mine, the diameter of the
pipe at the surface was about 1,000 feet, and the width decreased sharply with
depth. Mining stopped in 1908 at a depth of 3,500 feet because of flooding,
even though the diamond-rich pipe continued on to greater depths. At the
surface of the mine, the kimberlite is weathered to a soft yellow rock, and at
depth the rock grades into a harder blue rock.The ratio of diamonds to barren
rock was about 1 to 8 million by weight.The diamonds are extracted from
the blue rock by first crushing it finely enough to permit concentration. It is
then spread out on tables coated with grease, to which the diamonds adhere
while the waste material is washed away.
The worlds largest and most productive diamond mine is the Premier
mine, located 24 miles east of Pretoria, South Africa. Since mining began in
1903, more than 30 million carats, or about six tons of diamonds, have been
produced. The worlds largest diamond, the Cullinan, weighing 3,024 carats
(21 ounces), was found there in 1905.
Diamonds have been found sparingly in other regions of the world,
including Guyana,Venezuela,Australia, and various parts of the United States.
Small stones have occasionally been discovered in stream sands along the eastern
slope of the Appalachian Mountains from Virginia to Georgia. Diamonds
from the gold sands of northern California and southern Oregon have been
reported. Sporadic occurrences have also been found along the border of
Wyoming and Colorado and in glacial till deposits in Ohio,Wisconsin, and
Michigan.
In 1906, diamonds were discovered in a kimberlite pipe near
Murfreesboro, Arkansas. This locality resembled areas containing diamond
pipes in South Africa and was the site of the only operating diamond mine in
the United States, yielding a total of about 40,000 stones. It is now
a tourist attraction, known as the Crater of Diamonds State Park, where people
pay a small fee to sift through the black soil in search of instant wealth.
The diamond field is plowed regularly, and generally the period after a rainstorm
is the best time to search for diamonds because the surface of the freshly
turned soil is washed, exposing the diamonds, which might otherwise look
like bits of glass. One of the largest diamonds was found by a baby sucking on
what was thought to be an ordinary rock.

Joseph Kieffer
http://hand-made-jewelry.com

Many people are starting to favor the fancy, vivid colored diamond gem stones over the traditional transparent, or white, diamond. Some diamonds are found in their natural colors when they are mined, others become colored by gemologists and jewelers during a treatment process. In order to make them more affordable to the average consumer, companies have begun color treating diamonds of lower grades in order to take a less desirable yellow or brownish tinted diamond and make it into a beautiful, brightly colored diamond.

Colored diamonds can be treated by a process called irradiation, which uses a high heat system to alter the color of a diamond. Other diamonds are treated by painting.

Fancy Colored Diamonds:

While many diamonds are inspected and valued based on their colorless qualities, there are people who prefer the fancy colored diamonds that come in vivid hues of greens, yellows, reds, pinks and all the different colors in between.

Some colored diamonds are that way naturally. If a diamond has nitrogen in it, it often has a yellow tint to the stone. If the gemstone has been effected by radiation, the gem may turn green.

Other colored diamonds have been treated to obtain their color, and this allows people with lower budgets to purchase the fancy colored diamonds. Gemologists have found ways to alter the colors of diamonds to get any shade or hue desired.

The grading process for colored diamonds is slightly different than that of the transparent diamond. First, a colored diamond is graded based on the primary hue, the blue or pink or red color that makes up the majority of the diamonds color. Second, they are graded based on the intensity of that color. A very intense, naturally colored diamond is more rare than a less intense diamond, and therefore more expensive. A treated diamond will cost less than a naturally colored diamond in most instances.

Synthetic Diamonds:

Most diamonds are found and mined by miners, but more recently, scientists have come up with ways to create synthetic diamonds. While a synthetic diamond is still a “real diamond”, they are created within a laboratory instead of by nature in a mine.

Colored Diamond Names:

Because fancy colored diamonds come in so many different shades, it can sometimes be difficult to interpret the name of the diamonds color. Often, you’ll find two colors labeling the shade of a diamond, such as greenish blue. Each name has a primary color description, and some have a secondary color description. If a diamond is called “blue diamond”, you can tell it will be a blue shaded diamond gemstone. If the diamond is called “greenish blue”, you may wonder what that means.

Is the diamond blue, or is it green? The color that is described with the “ish” at the end is considered the secondary color, and the other color, in this case blue, becomes the primary color. So a greenish blue diamond is mostly blue, with specks of green seen throughout the stone. If you come upon a diamond labeled “brown red”, then the diamond will have equal amounts of both colors seen through the stone.

For over a century, DeBeers has held a virtual monopoly over the diamond industry by iron-handedly controlling the supply of diamonds. Today, the company still controls over 60% of the trade. Their beauty aside, the value of natural diamonds has always been dependent on the fact that they are rare and expensive to mine. 

So it is not surprising that the recent developments in synthetic diamond manufacturing have the diamond industry giants worried. If diamonds are no longer rare and expensive to get, why would people pay thousands for them? In an attempt to combat the threat of synthetic diamonds, DeBeers has provided major jewelers with sophisticated, diamond authentication machines: DiamondSure and DiamondView.

The problem with making quality comparisons between man-made diamonds and mined diamonds is that there aren’t any huge, physical, optical or chemical differences.

And the ones that are there don’t necessarily favor the natural diamond.

Lab-grown diamonds tended to be smaller when the technology was just being developed. But the ability to make larger diamonds is improving. Apollo Diamonds, one of the first two companies (the other being Gemesis) that was among the first to start producing gem-quality diamonds uses a technique called chemical vapor deposition (CVD), which can produce multi-carat diamonds easily, for either gem or industrial use.

Another difference is that clear white diamonds are more common in nature, and colored diamonds are rare. In the lab, however, it is easier to produce colored diamonds than white diamonds.

Man-made diamonds also might have distinct growth patterns that professional jewelers using sophisticated equipment might be able to detect.

The other difference between mined and lab-grown diamonds is that lab-grown gems have fewer inclusions than natural diamonds. Inclusions are regarded as flaws, and the lack of them results in a higher clarity grading, so this is actually a point in favor of man-made gems.

The CVD method used by Apollo doesn’t use metal solvents in the creation process, thus their diamonds are as near to 100 percent pure diamond as you can get. One of the only ways to detect the fact that they are not natural mined diamonds is that they are too flawless. The price per carat of producing a CVD diamond is .

The goal of lab diamond manufacturers, however, is not to pass their stones off as natural diamonds, but rather to openly offer them as alternatives to natural diamonds.

As for the DeBeers and the diamond mining industry, they’re banking on the marketing angle to fight off the intrusion of lab-made diamonds. In a 2003 magazine article, Jef Van Royen, senior scientist at the Diamond High Council in Antwerp, was quoted as saying, “If people really love each other, then they give each other the real stone. It is not a symbol of eternal love if it is something that was created last week.”