World's second-largest diamond found in Botswana

bbc.com ^ | 22 August 2024 | Farouk Chothia

[V_TWIN]

The second-largest diamond ever found - a rough 2,492-carat stone - has been unearthed in Botswana at a mine owned by Canadian firm Lucara Diamond. It is the biggest find since the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond, found in South Africa in 1905 and cut into nine separate stones, many of which are in the British Crown Jewels. The diamond was found at Karowe mine, about 500km (300 miles) north of Botswana's capital, Gaborone. Botswana's government said it was the largest diamond ever discovered in the southern African state. The previous biggest discovery in Botswana was a 1,758-carat stone found at the same mine in 2019. Botswana is one of the world's biggest producer of diamonds, accounting for about 20% of global production. In a statement, Lucara said the stone was "one of the largest rough diamonds ever unearthed". "We are ecstatic about the recovery of this extraordinary 2,492 carat diamond," said Lucara head William Lamb. The diamond was detected with the use of Lucara's Mega Diamond Recovery X-ray technology, said Mr Lamb.

[Organic Panic]

I never understood them either.... I like diamonds, but only on my cutting tools when I have to cut carbon fiber or stones. The only garnet I care about is fed in to the hopper of my water jet. Aside from the novelty of a few quartz crystals I just don’t get it.

[Organic Panic]

And on his off time he can mine cobalt for his daily bowl of gruel.

[jimtorr]

I don’t think a diamond would make a decent hand axe or arrowhead. Too brittle.

[webheart]

Gold is really good. It is malleable and can be mashed to a flatness that is as thin as a single atom…. It is a very good conductor of electricity and it doesn’t corrode at all. It’s pretty dense so it has some heft to it. It is pretty scarce in the world so the supply increases very slowly. Plus it is shiny and the yellow color is very pleasant. The not being able to corrode and the weight and scarcity and pleasant color make it useful as a store of value.

Tungsten which is what they used to make lightbulb filaments is almost exactly the same density as gold so one could form it into a bar and cover with gold and you would not be able to see a difference in the weight. This is called “salting” and probably a pretty large amount of the gold bars in the world are partly made up of tungsten. You can’t tell without sawing the bar into pieces.