Diamonds Ethics

Diamonds, what can you say about them, they’re just beautiful everyone wants them. Diamonds is a lasting symbol of the powerful bond of love. Its strength, brilliance and value are as unique as the individuals who wear them. A diamond's worth is based on four levels which is the 4 C's cut, carat weight, color and clarity but we also have to think about the diamonds transparency and shape. In this paper, I will talk to about the structure and properties of a diamond, the forming of naturally and synthetically and the history.

Diamonds are the most unique forms of gems. “There are certain characteristic that distinguishes diamonds from other precious stones is that diamonds are one of the two best known forms of carbon, which is the hardness and high dispersion of light that makes it useful for industrial applications and jewelry and the well known allotrope is graphite. Diamonds are specifically renowned as a mineral with superlative physical qualities because of its excellent abrasives diamonds could only be scratched by other diamonds, which means they could be extremely polish well and it could retain its luster. 130 million carats are mined annually which is worth about $9 billion dollars” (Diamonds 1). Diamonds have been around since the beginning of the civilization. The name “diamond” originated from the Greeks. “Diamond has become popular since the 19th century because the cutting and polishing methods have improved but it’s commonly known by the “four Cs”: carat, clarity, color and cut. What really interesting is that about four times the mass of natural diamonds are produced as artificial diamonds annual. The majority of synthetic diamond production remains small but, defective diamonds are only suitable for industrial-grade use, but now with gem-quality synthetic diamonds are becoming available. Diamonds can be found in many different regions of the world. For the most part natural diamonds start off in central and southern Africa, even though major sources of the mineral have been discovered in Canada, Russia, Brazil, and Australia. Another quality that characterizes diamonds is that they are generally mined from volcanic pipes, which are deep in the Earth where the high pressure and temperature enables the formation of the crystals” (Diamonds 1).

“Diamonds have a chemical build up of tetrahedral bonded carbon atoms. The bonding of diamonds typically crystallize in the cubic crystal system and consist of tetrahedral bonded carbon atoms. Lonsdaleite is a polymorph of diamond that crystallizes with hexagonal symmetry; it is rarely found in nature, but is characteristic of artificial diamonds. A cryptocrystalline variety of diamond is called carbonado. As a result of these bonding are properties such as extreme hardness of diamond, its high dispersion index, and high thermal conductivity. These properties form the basis for most modern applications of diamond. A colorless, grey or black diamond with a tiny radial structure is a spherulite. The tetrahedral arrangement of atoms in a diamond crystal is the source of many of diamond's properties; graphite, another allotrope of carbon, has a rhombohedral crystal structure and as a result shows dramatically different physical characteristics