diamonds They have always held a strange fascination with people, but there are some particularly unique examples. One of these is the 20.46-carat Okavango blue diamond, which was discovered in a mine in Botswana in 2019 and is the most magnificent of this class.
The piece was found in the Orapa mine in the east of the country. The world’s most extensive diamond mining. In its rough form it was a 41.11 carat gem, but when polished it was 20.46 carats.
It has an oval shape and is named after it. ‘Okavango Blue’, It pays homage to one of the most famous landscapes in the country: the Okavango Delta.
“From the first moment we saw the diamond, it was clear that we had something very special on our hands. Everyone who saw the 20-carat polished diamond was amazed by its unique color,” said Okavango COO Marcus ter Haar. Diamond Company, the company responsible for the discovery.
A color caused by boron
Stone It owes its color to the presence of boron, a rare mineral, at the molecular level. It was found in rocks in the oceans, but due to plate tectonics, it entered the Earth between 1,000 and 3,000 million years ago, when diamonds formed.
Piece It must have formed at a depth of approximately 668 kilometers, over the years from where it came to the surface level where it was found in the above-mentioned mine.
“Only a handful of similar blue diamonds have come to market in the last decade. Of these, “Okavango Blue is definitely the most gorgeous.”It is considered Ter Haar.
Botswana is the world’s second largest diamond producer after Russia. The economy of this southern African country is largely dependent on the mining sector and, in particular, diamond exports.
From the bowels of the earth
It is believed that boron can reach deep into the Earth (where this diamond originates). as a result of the collision of tectonic plates. As a result of this collision of plates, one of them will have penetrated the Earth’s interior and carried boron from the ocean with it. All this happened about 3,000 million years ago. This is a process known as subduction and allows the formation of rare and strange gems such as the Okavango blue diamond.
As a rough stone it weighed 41.11 carats, but as a cut diamond it is now classified as Type llb “Fancy Deep Blue” and Oval Brilliant Cut. One of the highest polished color grades that can be given to a diamond blue.
Colored diamonds are rare, making up about 0.01 percent. (one in 10,000) diamonds mined worldwide. Blue, pink, green, purple, orange and red are the rarest; Yellow and brown are slightly more common.
But according to the IFLScience portal, The title of world’s most expensive diamond may be about to pass to a pink carbon piece called ‘Lulo Rose’. Like the Okavango diamond, it comes from a mine where other pieces of the same hue have also been discovered, but in this case a result of continental expansion and diatremes that occasionally blast them to the surface.
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