Russia Unveils a HUGE Secret Crater of Diamonds

September 19th, 2012 by Noam Flint

Every once in a while a story comes along where we hear about an individual finding a diamond by mistake. The Star of the South Diamond, one of the most famous brown diamonds out there is an example for such a diamond.

However, these newly discovered diamonds are a bit different…

As it seems, after 4 decades of secrecy, Russia unveils that a HUGE field with trillions of carats was found in east Siberia during the 70s – beneath an asteroid crater.

The diamonds that are found in this deposit seem to be of unusual big size and strength which makes them ideal for industry and technology usage.

Russia is already the biggest diamond producer in the world.
During 2011 they produced over 30,000,000 carats of diamonds which is almost 30% of the world’s production according to USGS, surpassing even De Beers.

This is probably one of the reasons why Russia did not say anything about this deposit up till now – in order not to destabilize the industry which they already control.

The newly found field has reserves that can fulfill the current demand for couple thousands years.

However, an interesting interpretation and analysis of this find was published in Forbes.
They thoroughly analyzed the PR and stated that such industrial diamonds are often not mined. The reason is that the economic value of diamonds is set by the value estimation minus the cost of the extraction. They emphasized that in high quality diamonds and gems it is not an issue because of their high value but diamonds for industrial usage can now be replaced by lab grown diamonds etc.

So as it seems there is no actual risk to the diamond industry as we know it.