Hold onto your seats, folks, because the diamond world has just been rocked by an incredible discovery! A De Beers sight holder recently stumbled upon something truly out-of-this-world: a diamond within a diamond!
That's right, India-based VD Global discovered the stunning 0.329-carat, D-color, type IaAB diamond, affectionately named the Beating Heart, back in October. But it wasn't until last week that De Beers announced the incredible find to the world.
So, how did this mind-blowing anomaly come to be? Well, according to the De Beers Institute of Diamonds, it's all down to the high-quality inner and outer layers of the diamond, which sandwiched a low-quality intermediate layer. Sometime between the diamond's formation and its journey to the Earth's surface, the middle part disappeared, leaving only the superior material behind to create a diamond that moves freely within its external shell. Crazy, right?
This isn't the first time a diamond like this has been discovered, though. In 2019, Alrosa found the Matryoshka diamond, which was named after the famous Russian nesting dolls because of its similar structure. It had an outer diamond of 0.62 carats and a free-moving inner stone weighing in at 0.02 carats. It just goes to show that Mother Nature never ceases to amaze us!
But what's next for the Beating Heart diamond? Well, De Beers has decided not to cut and polish it but instead keep it for research and educational purposes. Jamie Clark, head of global operations at De Beers Institute of Diamonds, explained that finds like this demonstrate why natural-diamond formation and origin is such a fascinating area of study, and why it's vital to strive for advancements in testing and analysis that can contribute to our knowledge of natural-diamond growth.
Samantha Sibley, technical educator at De Beers Group Ignite, summed it up best when she said, "I have certainly never seen anything like the Beating Heart during my last 30 years in the diamond sector." And we couldn't agree more - the Beating Heart diamond is a true marvel that reminds us just how incredible the natural world can be!