Huge Diamond Deposits Revealed In Russia 243
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Christian Science Monitor: "'Russia has just declassified news that will shake world gem markets to their core: the discovery of a vast new diamond field containing 'trillions of carats,' enough to supply global markets for another 3,000 years. The Soviets discovered the bonanza back in the 1970s beneath a 35-million-year-old, 62-mile diameter asteroid crater in eastern Siberia known as Popigai Astroblem. They decided to keep it secret, and not to exploit it, apparently because the USSR's huge diamond operations at Mirny, in Yakutia, were already producing immense profits in what was then a tightly controlled world market."
Re:And how will this (Score:5, Interesting)
"It's the biggest case of non-penalized price fixing in the history of the world."
It would be interesting to see whether OPEC price fixing cost the world more than this cartel. I have a sneaking suspicion it would win hands down.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And how will this (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact a CVD-grown diamond can be far superior to any natural stone you could ever find - with potentially zero inclusions or other defects. In fact if not for the laser-inscribed serial number on them the only way they could be distinguished from natural diamonds is that they are "too perfect"
As a bonus instead of funneling money into an abusive cartel you'll be supporting an industry which hopes to eventually be able to produce bulk laboratory-grade diamonds of arbitrary size, allowing the creation of things like diamond-based microprocessors which would be impossible with even the least-flawed natural stones (diamond is a dopeable electric insulator and an *incredible* thermal conductor, making it ideal for high-performance semiconductors)
Re:Does the Mohs scale now go to 11? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this another naturally occurring state of carbon that should be called something else?
Yes. [wikipedia.org]