We have all seen them! In the movies, on the covers of magazines and on the rich and famous. When we turn the news on and hear a royal got engaged we instantly glance to see how big the stone is. Something very frequently overlooked is the rarity of a large jewelry quality diamond! What’s even more interesting is what those stones can tell us about what’s deep inside the earth. If you look close enough every diamond tells a story!

“Large and relatively pure diamonds like the historic 3,106 ct Cullinan, found in South Africa in 1905, have long been regarded as unusual based on their physical characteristics. For example, they often exhibit exceptional color and clarity, while routinely qualifying as type IIa, a rare designation of chemical purity. A new research discovery about these Cullinan-like diamonds is that they contain heretofore unknown, deeply derived inclusions that originate below the continental mantle keel and are thus known as “super deep” diamonds (Smith et al., 2016). Originating from a depth between 360 and 750 km, they reveal information about the conditions within the convecting mantle, beneath the earth’s rigid tectonic plates.”