Moon-sized diamond found in space

The Register ^ | 17 February 2004 | Lucy Sherriff

[Bernard Marx]

You have your version of Reality and I have mine. The JVC I know does its best to protect consumers from gold underkarating, misrepresentations, false advertising, etc. in the retail jewelry trade. It's funded entirely by retail jewelers and has nothing to do with DeBeers or the marketing or promotion of diamonds.

Companies like Gemesis can manufacture diamonds which are bigger and better than natural ones.

Hogwash. I dislike DeBeers for my own reasons (I'm a colored stone guy) but I try not to let emotions rule my intellect. I get my gemology from real gemology sources, not "Wired Magazine."

Gemesis uses high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) technology pioneered by GE for diamond synthesis back in the 1950s. At present they market only yellow diamonds in sizes up to 2 carats. It's much more difficult to make large clear, white diamonds. They'll eventually do it but diamonds made by the HPHT process can readily be identified as synthetic. They're simply not "bigger and better" than naturals and Gemesis will probably never bother to create stones in the Cullinan and Koh-i-Noor size class even if it's possible which I doubt.

Diamond sellers' livelihoods are much more threatened by the new single-crystal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process used by Apollo Diamond Inc. of Boston. Theoretically (see my tag line) diamonds of large size can be grown that way. As of now rough CVD crystals weigh between 1 and 3 carats and stones cut for jewelry use can be a little over 1 carat. The technology will improve. The kicker is that stones grown this way probably can't be identified by the average retail jeweler and will have to be sent to a costly gem lab for ID.

Bottom line: eventually, CVD diamonds will probably destroy the gem diamond business but it won't happen soon, and don't expect $50-a-carat diamonds. It's not likely the CEO of Apollo will immediately flood the market with cheap product. Prices will be lower than naturals, of course, but with a very healthy mark-up without direct competition. Efforts will be made to distinguish CVDs from naturals but of course synthetics will be slipped into parcels of natural stones. Reports out of Hong Kong indicate the Chinese are working on CVD technology. Their usual strategy is to flood the market with cheap-labor product, lower profit margins, drive foreign producers out of business, then dominate the market. It'll probably happen with diamonds.

My question is: who'd want a mass-produced, mass-marketed "diamond"? By restricting supplies and using possibly the best marketing campaign in the history of advertising, DeBeers has been able to maintain at least the illusion of natural diamond rarity and exclusivity. "Diamonds Are Forever" advertising directly targets women with very powerful emotional appeals --DeBeers knows who to sell to. But what's the point of a woman wanting a cheapo synthetic stone like everyone else's? Since the game is to demand the biggest, best and most expensive status symbol around, something new, rare and expensive will replace diamond in engagement rings.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Yeah, but what's the color/clarity?

The four "c's" Caret, color, clarity and cut.

I expect this diamond would be rated VVBI. (very very big imperfections)

I would like to see the diamond cleaver though

[capitan_refugio]

The synthetic boron nitride high temp, hig pressure polymorph was called "borazon." Boron nitride in its natural state is similar to graphite.

If you were to look at a pressure-temperature phase diagram of carbon, you would see that diamond is stable above about 25 kilobars at standard temperature.

I looked up "adamantine" in another minerology/gem book I have and it is defined as, "A hard, brilliant luster like that of diamond"! Such a luster is due to a high index of refraction. Other non-metallic lusters include vitreous (glass-like), pearly, greasy, silky, and resinous.

[King Prout]

try looking it up in a basic dictionary ;)

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

(And the mount needed for a 17 quintilion carat ring would be a task in itself) :)

I'm sure we'll eventually find a suitable planet to use...

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Now what will they name the large chunk of purple microdot they discover?

I propose that they name it "Vida" after "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida."

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I'll bet you'd get laid a few hundred times if you gave that to your girl.

[myheroesareDeadandRegistered]

So what you're sayin' is that "a diamond is NOT forever"?

[petercooper]

get debeers on the case

[RightWingAtheist]

LOL! Not just the diamond that's "forever!"

[RightWingAtheist]

LOL! Not just the diamond that's "forever!"

[BaBaStooey]

I was thinking the same thing.

I wonder if DeBeers will donate big time cash to the space program now, hmm?

[capitan_refugio]

At standard temperature and pressure, diamonds are not forever. In an earlier posted I noted the molecular structure of the diamond tetrahedron was stable at about 25 kilobars. Reading another source, it indicates stablity to about 10 kilobars. (10 kbar @ 0 degrees C, 20 kbar @ 400 degrees C, 30 kbar @ 750 degrees C, 40 kbar @1100 degrees c, 50 kbar @ 1500 degrees C. By the time you get to pressures of 60 kilobars, you are already at a depth of about 200 kilometers and well into the upper mantle.) In either case, those pressures exist only in specially built machines for making synthetic gems and deep in the earth's crust and mantle.