Humans have always been fascinatedwith shiny objects. Some shiny

objects are very cheap such as Cubic Zirconiawhile other shiny objects

are pure gems that sell very well are diamonds. To the untrained eye, the

two can be confused for one another and you might end up paying for

more than what it was worth."Minerals have a definite crystalline structures and

chemical compositions that give them unique sets of physical and chemical properties shared

by all samples of the mineral." (Tarbuck, pg. 42)Diamonds are not easy to come

by; there is a di#cult process that starts deep in the dirt to

eventuallybeing placed on your $nger or around your neck. Nowadays

searching for diamonds is a commercial industry. It used to be that you

got lucky if you stumbled acrossone and then starteddigging in hopes

that you would $nd more. In a sense the searching part is still the same

but we have evolved by using "...geologists tofollow the trail of

secondary diamond sources to determine where the primary sources of

pipe deposits are." (http://beyond4cs.com/) Once they $nd the source of

the diamonds they start hauling the dirt to a special plant where they are

separated from the ore and the dirt. After that then they are

separatedinto the quality of the diamond and then sold to be shaped into

how we see them as. After that the shaper then sells the diamonds to

retail stores. The United States is the largest buyer of diamonds, but we

do not have any diamond mines in Americathat are considered to be

pro$table. Most of the world's diamonds come from Africa, Russia, Canada

and Australia.

Resources:

Tarbuck, E.J., Lutgens, F.K., 2015. Earth science. Pearson, Boston.-

http://beyond4cs.com/faq/diamond-origins/how-they-are-mined/