De Beers has announced the discovery of a super-rare diamond-within-a-diamond – a 0.329 carat D-color Type IaAB stone which has “an internal cavity enclosing a smaller diamond that is trapped yet able to move freely,” according to IDEX Online.
The diamond, named the “Beating Heart,” is one of only three such diamonds to be found. Alrosa found such a 0.62-carat diamond, with an internal cavity containing a tiny diamond with an estimated weight of 0.02 carats. In 2019. In 2021, India Bore Diamond Holdings (IBDH) found “an 0.844-carat flat, triangular gem at the Ellendale alluvial deposit, in Western Australia.” The gem inside it weighs just 0.001 carats.
De Beers has not specified where it has found the diamond, which was spotted only after having reached VD Global (VDG) in India last October. The rare stone was then sent to the De Beers Institute of Diamonds (IoD) facility in Maidenhead, England, for examination. It will not be cut and polished, but kept for research and educational purposes instead.
According to the IoD, “Initial conclusions suggest the cavity was formed due to preferential etching of an intermediate layer of poor-quality fibrous diamond. The original ‘core’ would have consisted of good-quality diamond growth. However, a subsequent layer of growth was likely poor and fibrous, followed by a further ‘outer coating’ of gem-quality crystal. At some point between its formation and travel to the surface of the Earth, the poor-quality layer etched away.
“Only the better quality material ‘survived’ this process – the outer diamond and the core – which, in this case, led to a diamond that can freely move around within an inner space.”
