Diamond, Mineral Uses & Properties

The world's most popular gemstone.............The hardest natural substance known.

Diamond is a fascinating mineral. It is chemically resistant and it is the hardest known natural substance. These properties make it suitable for use as a cutting tool and for other uses where durability is required. Diamond also has special optical properties such as a high index of refraction, high dispersion and high luster. These properties help make diamond the world's most popular gemstone.

What is Diamond?

Diamond is a rare, naturally occurring mineral composed of carbon. Each carbon atom in a diamond is surrounded by four other carbon atoms and connected to them by strong covalent bonds. This simple, uniform, tightly bonded arrangement yields one of the most durable substances known.

Where Do Diamonds Form?

Diamonds are not native to Earth's surface. Instead they form at high temperatures and pressures that occur in Earth's mantle about 100 miles down. Diamonds are brought to Earth's surface by volcanic eruptions. Instead of melting and being transported to the surface as a melt, the diamonds are carried to the surface in large pieces of mantle rock known as xenoliths. The diamonds are produced either by mining the rock which contains the xenoliths or by mining the soils and sediments that formed as the diamond-bearing rock weathered away.

Gem Diamonds vs. Industrial Diamonds

Gemstone diamonds are stones with color and clarity that make them suitable for jewelry or investment use. These stones are especially rare and make up a minor portion of worldwide diamond production. Gemstone diamonds are sold for their beauty and quality.

Industrial diamonds are mostly used in cutting, grinding, drilling and polishing procedures. Here, hardness and heat conductivity characteristics are the qualities being purchased. Size and other measures of quality relevant to gemstones are not important. Industrial diamonds are often crushed to produce micron-sized abrasive powders. Large amounts of diamonds that are gemstone quality but too small to cut are sold into the industrial diamond trade.

Diamond as a Gemstone

Diamonds are the world's most popular gemstones. More money is spent on diamonds than on all other gemstones combined. Part of the reason for diamond's popularity is a result of its optical properties - or how it reacts with light. Other factors include fashion, custom and marketing.

Diamonds have a very high luster. The high luster is a result of a diamond reflecting a high percentage of the light that strikes its surface. This high luster is what gives diamonds their pleasing "sparkle".

Diamond also has a high dispersion. As white light passes through a diamond this high dispersion causes that light to separate into its component colors. Dispersion is what enables a prism to separate white light into the colors of the spectrum. This property of dispersion is what gives diamonds their colorful "fire".

Diamond Gemstone Quality

The quality of a diamond gemstone is primarily determined by four factors: color, cut, clarity and carats.

Color: Most gem quality diamonds range from colorless to yellow. The most highly regarded stones are those that are completely colorless. These are the ones sold for the highest prices. However, another category of diamond gemstone is increasing in popularity. These are the "fancy" diamonds, which occur in a variety of colors including, red, pink, yellow, purple, blue and green. The value of these stones is based upon their color intensity, rarity and popularity.

Cut: The quality of workmanship in a diamond has a large impact upon its quality. This influences not only the geometric appearance of the stone but also the stone's luster and fire. Ideal stones are perfectly polished to be highly reflective and emit a maximum amount of fire. The faceted faces are equal in size and identical in shape. And, the edges of each faceted face meets perfectly with each of its neighbors.

Clarity: The ideal diamond is free from internal flaws and inclusions (particles of foreign material within the stone). These detract from the appearance of the stone and interfere with the passage of light through the stone. When present in large numbers or sizes they can also reduce the strength of the stone.

Carat: Diamonds are sold by the carat (a unit of weight equal to 1/5th of a gram or 1/142nd of an ounce). Small diamonds cost less per carat than larger stones of equal quality. This is because very small stones are very common and large stones are especially rare.

Diamonds Used as an Abrasive

Because diamonds are very hard they are often used as an abrasive. Most industrial diamonds are used for these purposes. Small particles of diamond are embedded in a saw blade, a drill bit or a grinding wheel for the purpose of cutting, drilling or grinding. They might also be ground into a powder and made into a diamond paste that is used for polishing or for very fine grinding.

There is a very large market for industrial diamonds. Demand for them exceeds the supply obtained through mining. Synthetic diamonds are being produced to meet this industrial demand. They can be produced at a low cost per carat and perform well in industrial use.

Other Uses of Diamonds

Most industrial diamonds are used as abrasives. However, small amounts of diamond are used in other applications.

Diamond windows

are made from thin diamond membranes and used to cover openings in lasers, x-ray machines and vacuum chambers. They are transparent, very durable and resistant to heat and abrasion.

Diamond speaker domes

enhance the performance of high quality speakers. Diamond is a very stiff material and when made into a thin dome it can vibrate rapidly without the deformation that would degrade sound quality.

Heat sinks

are materials that absorb or transmit excess heat. Diamond has the highest thermal conductivity of any material. It is used to conduct heat away from the heat sensitive-parts of high performance microelectronics.

Low friction microbearings

are needed in tiny mechanical devices. Just as some watches have jewel bearings in their movements diamonds are used where extreme abrasion resistance and durability are needed.

Wear-resistant parts

can be produced by coating surfaces with a thin coating of diamond. In this process, diamond is converted into a vapor that deposits on the surface of parts prone to wear.

Landslide Lake in Northwest Pakistan

A landslide near Abottabad, Pakistan, dumped tons of rock into the Hunza River in early January 2010. The natural dam blocked the river, causing a lake to grow behind it and flooding towns, roads, and fields for miles. Bridges across the Hunza River were submerged and the Karakorum Highway, the major road through the region and a significant trade route with China, was cut off. By late May, water reached a spillway that had been excavated to relieve pressure and to prevent a catastrophic outburst flood. Geoloigist David Petley reported that the lake level peaked in early July and has been gradually declining as the flow of water into the lake from melting glaciers has decreased and the spillway has expanded to let more water out of the lake.

The top natural-color image, taken by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite on October 3, 2010, shows the decline in water levels at the upstream end of the lake since July (lower image). An estimate of the river’s course as of September 2009, based on satellite imagery from the ASTER instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite, is displayed on the October image.

Since July, the lake has retreated significantly near the town of Hussiani. Muddy islands formed by the braiding pattern of the river have appeared again after months underwater. The river has been returning to its former bed as the water has retreated. The change since August 23, however, is only slight, suggesting that the new lake may be temporarily stabilizing at this size. The long shadows in the October image reflects the change of seasons compared to the more direct light of mid-summer.

1. References

2. Petley, D. (2010, September 1). The latest NASA image of Attabad Dave’s Landslide Blog. Accessed October 12, 2010.
3. Petley, D. (2010, July 6). Attabad—No substantial changes in the lake level. Dave’s Landslide Blog. Accessed October 12, 2010.
4. Taylor, A. (2010, June 4). Landslide lake in Pakistan. Boston.com: The Big Picture. Accessed October 12, 2010.

NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Jesse Allen.