Diamonds

Diamond

 

 

There, I have said it!  I think these are diamonds.  This is the rock that I showed you yesterday.  It came from a volcano.

I saw "How the Earth was Made"  last night.  It mentioned diamonds as being formed 100 million years ago while the dinosaurs walked the earth.  They discussed a mine in Kimberley, South Africa.  Diamonds are associated with the volcanic rock Kimberlite.  They said that the diamonds were formed 100 miles below the Earth's surface where there is intense heat and pressure.  The volcanic eruption which ejected them was a super eruption.  They are mined in a kimberlite pipe which was the route of the volcano eruption.

As I read about diamonds, I learned that the way to identify them is to use the Mohs scale.  It is a scale of hardness for minerals.  Diamonds are the hardest of all minerals at ten,10.  That means they will scratch any other mineral including corundum which is nine, 9.  I happen to have a test kit which includes samples of the various minerals for testing the hardness of unknown samples.

These are extremely small crystals.  I don't know if I want to remove them and if I did, I doubt that I could hold them to try to scratch corundum.

The diamond is said to have a white streak.  That means it will leave a white stream on unglazed white pottery when scratched across it.  My test kit also includes white pottery.  

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