Diamonds

[roc2rol]

Hola amigo,
Then there are those diamonds in California, with zero kimberlite pipes and they surely didn't get carried there by glaciers from Canada so...? Roy

Yo Roy
I can't speak directly about the California diamonds but will make a crazy conjecture. Perhaps they came from space? Via meteorite! Now I know that sounds nutty but microscopic size diamonds have been discovered. Here’s such a meteor called Murchison which landed in Australia.



intersting about the kimberlite, oro
geology makes&breaks it own rules

[oroblanco]

Hola amigo,

Those meteorite diamonds, reminds me there are quite a lot of them found in AZ, as you say though all microscopic. That is a good size however for industrial uses and someone told me industrial diamonds are something like $50,000 a pound. I don't know if that is true or not.

I was fibbing a little bit on there being NO kimberlite in California too, I do know of one but am not supposed to say a single word about it. And here I have already broken my word on that too. I guess he won't be mad so long as I don't say where his claim is. A friend of ours found a single small (10 points) diamond in his placer mine, and he hired a geologist who examined the site where it came from which was an odd, dark blue clay he had hit inside the tunnel at some distance from the entrance. The blue clay turns out to be a decomposed kimberlite pipe, and it is solid a bit deeper so there is at least one kimberlite pipe in CA that has produced a diamond.

The other diamonds found in CA have all been found in creeks as placer deposits, so the kimberlite pipes that they came from still need to be found. I don't think they are meteoritic in origin because of the size issue, and they have been found in volcanic areas. With all the volcanic activity in AZ-NM, I more than half expect there are diamonds there too, just have never been found or not recognized when they are.

Here is a NYT article from back when diamonds were first found in CA, including one of 1.5 carats!
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.h ... 94669FD7CF
Roy

[oroblanco]

PS - for anyone thinking that must have been a hoax - it was NO hoax! Diamond prospectors are busy even today hunting all over the western states. Some very impressive diamond strikes have been made in recent years (in Canada) and not by the big mining oufits either, by individual prospectors who had to beg, borrow and live on beans while they were prospecting.

[roc2rol]

Yo Roy
Lots to reply to on the above
but tonight my brain is more like
loose graphite than brilliant diamond

but ya got me doing math
how many carats in a pound?

If
5 carat = 1.0 gram
&
453.6 gram = 1 lb

Then there are
90.72 carats to a pound

but I’m pretty sure that wrong

What numbers do you come up with?

[TradClimber]

2267.962 carats = 1 pound
http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/un ... nd.en.html

TradClimber

[oroblanco]

Thank you Tradclimber, saved me from an embarrassing mathematical moment! I think Roc2Rol's problem came by forgetting to multiply a step.

Roc2Rol wrote

but ya got me doing math
how many carats in a pound?

If
5 carat = 1.0 gram
&
453.6 gram = 1 lb

Then there are
90.72 carats to a pound

but I’m pretty sure that wrong

What numbers do you come up with?

5 carats (to one gram) x 453.6 grams to the pound = 2268 carats per avoirdupois (english) pound. That is pretty danged close to the figure our amigo got of 2267.962 carats = 1 pound

Keep your eyes peeled when you are rockhounding, you never know what you will find!
Roy

[roc2rol]

Thanks Trad & Oro!!!

I was dividing when I should been multiplying

I was mulling over how many carats it would be if I collected a pound of industrial diamond?
Well my work as just increased exponentially!
11,340 is a lot carob seeds.

I don’t know the price of industrial diamond by the pound.
I assume there much more expensive then
synthetic diamonds manufactored for industrial use.

Arizona most likely does have diamonds.
The state has peridots, which like diamonds,
is a gem formed deep under the crust.
It is delivered to the open air by a magma thrust,
much like diamonds. Its been detected in meteorites
and as been found on Mars!

Hopefully my prospecting skills will be better than my math
most likely tho... I’ll just be counting a lot of beans!
Ed

[Mrs.Oroblanco]

Hello,

I'm going to "step" in here for a moment - to straighten a few things out.

Industrial diamonds of the synthetic type are actually almost all over the board on prices, because it depends on the cost of producing them.

Natural industrial diamonds, currently, are running approximately 30 cents per carat for the Bort-sized material to $7.00 to $10.00 per carat for average stones, up to about $200-$250 for the larger stones. (not gem quality stones).

This information was put out by the USGS site. ($700+ per pound is still good money, imo).

Beth (Mrs. O)

[roc2rol]

That’s excellent info Beth. That USGS site is pretty informative.

“In general, synthetic diamond prices for grinding
and polishing range from as low as $0.10 per carat
to $0.95 per carat. Strong and blocky material for
sawing and drilling sells for $1.50 to $4.75 per carat.”

I think a pound of 60/90 silicon carbide lapidary grit used for tumbling goes for about $4.00 lb.

Of course that is a far different type of diamond, I believe,
then the synthetic diamond wheels use in industrial grinding.
Wheels for carbide saw blades range in price from $200.00 to $400.00 dollars a wheel



My lapidary wheels ranged in price from $80.00 to
$220.00 depending on grit size and obviously
totally different in construction from
the industrial diamond grinding wheels.

None of the above really explains the structure or
the amount of carets in any of these type of products.
Grinding wheel termonlogy gets confusing quick
And to confuse matters even more there is viable industry
in recycling diamonds carets from what I call the slurry of grinding.

I keep the slurry from my lapidary work. As a silly notion,
I wonder if I can recover some carets of diamond from it?
All I need is heat, pressure and lots of time and luck.
Just silly a notion!!! But still I keep it.
Because its full of strange minerals that want
to morph into something .


But to get back to prospecting! 700.00 a lb is pretty healthy pickn’s.
Heck on my job I move 16 tons in a day
& what’dya get? We know the song …

[Guz]

A lot of borax....