Russia’s ALROSA Group, the world’s largest diamond miner, decided to keep the unmatched “diamond in a diamond” in its collection of rare finds, corporate website reports. The collection already includes a skull-shaped and a football-shaped rough diamonds that the company mined in recent years. ALROSA’s collection of rare stones is not for sale.
The diamond with another one moving freely inside was discovered at the Nyurba Mining and Processing Division. The experts have never seen such stones in the history of diamond mining. Usually some parts of a mineral are replaced by others without a cavity. On the other hand, regular diamonds may have small gas-liquid inclusions. However, such large cavities have never been found in crystals before.
According to scientists, the Matryoshka diamond may be more than 800 million years old. Despite its complex structure, it weighs only 0.62 carats (0.124 grams) and has a maximum size of 4.8 x 4.9 x 2.8 mm. The internal cavity volume is 6 mm³ and the internal crystal’s volume is 1.6 mm³ with an estimated weight of 0.02 carats (0.004 grams). The inner diamond has a table shape and dimensions of 1.9×2.1×0.6 mm.
Scientists at the ALROSA’s Research and Development Geological Enterprise put forward various hypotheses of the origin of this diamond. To date, the most probable version is that both internal and external diamonds were formed at the same time.