One of the prominent raw pink baseball diamond ever find was think by miners in Angola in 2022 . Named the “ Lulo Rose ” , it time an telling 170 carats and could be about to become the most expensive diamond in chronicle . Its enormous weight is one factor , but so too is its rarified pink colour , which get us wondering : why are some rhombus pink ?
Colored baseball diamond are rarified , representing about0.01 percent – one in 10,000 – of diamonds mined across the planet . Pink is as rare , as are blue , green , violet , orangish , and red , while yellow and brownish are a moment more vulgar .
Curiously , while the peculiarity of color diamond up their terms ticket , the aesthetic hues are the outcome of imperfections – something we humans typically devalue . The rationality why we dig up more decipherable diamonds is because , in a one - ingredient rock like diamonds , it ’s more vulgar to terminate up with a chemically perfect one .
.jpg)
Why are some diamonds pink? It all comes down to their imperfections.Image courtesy of Lucapa Diamond Company Limited
The exact mechanism behind pinkish diamonds is n’t know for certain , but they ’re thought to be the result of distortion , which is one of the three master ways in which a diamond can wind up with imperfections ( the other two being impurities and equipment casualty ) . Distortion takes place when the lattice structure of a diamond have twisted and dented , vary the way light is reflected so that it does n’t appear white .
That distortion has to be just correct to be pink , as a little more and it turns to brownness . A adamant ’s colour is always the termination of the precise conditions under which it was forged , which is why those with imperfections never attend the same . So , not all pink baseball field are the same shade of pink , nor are all the greenish ones as green .
It makes sentience that around80 to 90 percentof the pinkish diamond get hold by humans were discovered in the same mine , however , as they were forged in an arena that apportion the same geological history . That mine was the Argyle in Western Australia , which is now closed , but was the web site of acontinental collisionaround 1.8 billion years ago .
The collision bring home the bacon passel of pressure , meanwhile , their position near the base of the lithosphere bring home the bacon plenty of hotness , coming together to produce just enough overrefinement for a chain of mountains of diamonds traverse from loose pinko to red , dark-brown , orange , and purple . Among them were many pink diamonds , but none so big as theLulo Rose .
Prior to its discovery , the big and most expensive pink sway was the Pink Star that sold at a Hong Kong auction for a backbone - shivering $ 71.2 million in 2017 , making it the most expensive diamond ever betray . It originally weighed 132.5 kt , but was shaved down to 59.6 , gain many admiration if the 170 - karat Lulo Rose could one day take the crown as the most expensive adamant in story if it buy the farm to auction .
notecase at the ready , folks .
[ H / T : The Conversation ]
