Mining Company Finds Huge Diamond in Botswana
A Canadian mining company has discovered a huge 1,174-carat diamond in Botswana, and there may be more to come.
The diamond was found by Lucara Diamond, a Canadian firm that mined a 1,758-carat diamond at Botswana's Karowe mine in 2019 that is believed to be the second largest ever discovered.
At 77 millimeters long, 55 millimeters wide and 33 millimeters thick, the newly discovered diamond is about the size of the palm of a large hand. The mining company also found several smaller diamonds — weighing 471, 218 and 159 carats — that look similar to the larger one. This might mean that they all were part of one large diamond that weighed more than 2,000 carats.
This is the third diamond of more than 1,000 carats to be found at the site. It is larger than a 1,098-carat diamond unearthed at another Botswana mine in June, which at the time was believed to be the third largest gem-quality diamond in the world.
Most diamonds are formed between 150 kilometers and 230 kilometers beneath the Earth's surface by high temperatures and the pressure from the weight of the earth pushing down on them. Diamonds like the ones discovered by Lucara are believed to have been pushed closer to the surface — where they can be mined — by eruptions deep underground.
Large natural diamonds are often destroyed during mining, but new technology has allowed more of them to be found before this happens, which is why so many large gems have appeared recently.
The biggest diamond ever found was the Cullinan Diamond, which was unearthed in South Africa in 1905. It weighed 3,106 carats, but it was later cut into several smaller diamonds.
