general diamond information

Composition: C (crystallized carbon)

Crystal System: Isometric (cubic)

Moh’s Hardness: 10

Specific Gravity: 3.417-3.55

Refractive Index: 2.417-2.419

Transparency: Transparent

The word "Diamond" comes from the greek word "Adamas", which means indestructible. It is the only gem known to man that is made of a single element, Carbon, besides graphite. Diamond is completely made of Carbon atoms (Chemical Composition - 'C') crystallized in a cubic isometric arrangement.

Diamonds form between 120-200 kms or 75-120 miles below the earth's surface. According to geologists the first delivery of diamonds was somewhere around 2.5 billion years ago and the most recent was 45 million years ago.

The carbon that makes diamonds comes from the melting of pre-existing rocks in the earth's upper mantle. There is an abundance of carbon atoms in the mantle. Temperature changes in the upper mantle forces the carbon atoms to go deeper where it melts and finally becomes new rock, when the temperature reduces. Other conditions including pressure and chemistry affect the carbon atoms in the melting crust of the rock to bond to build diamond crystals.

There is no guarantee that these carbon atoms will turn into diamonds. If the temperature rises or the pressure drops, the diamond crystals may melt partially or totally dissolve. Even if they do form, it takes thousands of years for those diamonds to come anywhere near the earth’s surface.

Many diamonds that are mined are not used in jewelry. Only one fourth of diamonds are made into jewelry. Every 100 tons of mud produces one carat of a diamond. That mud could produce a small amount of carats, from 0.005 ct to 1 ct..

No one knows exactly when, where and who made the first attempt to cut diamonds. It is assumed that the first diamond cutting styles originated in India. However, it was only limited to simple chipping or grinding. In ancient times diamonds were valued more for their magical and mythological properties. By modifying the natural state of a diamond in any way would alter its magical properties and render it useless. The cleaving techniques used on diamonds attempted to get flat faces on diamonds.

Experimentation with diamond cutting did not yield any significant results until the seventeenth century. The early diamond cutters were unable to polish the rough octahedral diamonds. However, they found out that they could polish or grind diamonds into a point by polishing almost parallel to the diamonds rough faces, at an angle lesser than the diamond rough faces. They realized that only diamonds cut diamonds. Hence they used a wooden table covered with diamond dust to achieve any kind of polishing.