Diamonds ?

[Racoon]

Diamonds are forever... well usually a good 3 billion years old or so, but thats practically forever; a natural crystalline substance that exemplifies wealth, prosperity, status, and everlasting love.

 

Aside from a few industrial uses, why have societies coveted the diamond and why do people spend inordinate sums of money on them?

 

Is it a conspiracy? Are they a waste of money relatively speaking?

Why is a diamond ring seem necessary when marrying someone?

 

I don't see the logic or practicality in it; unless you're a jeweler.

 

Plus the horror stories of African diamond mines, and all the "blood" diamond biz.

 

 

Diamond Wedding Tradition

 

The custom of exchanging wedding rings dates back as far as the comic Roman poet Plautus in the 2nd century BCE. Wedding rings were then valued because of interior inscriptions recording the marriage contracts signed in the presence of the Emperor's image. The custom was continued and mostly Christianized by the 4th century by St. Augustine. Byzantine wedding rings are thick gold bands with round or oval bezels depicting the couple face to face, or receiving Christ's blessing of their union. The tradition of giving rings in the engagement and marriage ceremony as tokens of everlasting love has taken the diamond into its present-day popularity.

[Racoon]

Diamonds are used in drill bits, glass cutting, and surgical instruments...

 

Diamonds are brought to the surface from the mantle in a rare type of magma called kimberlite and erupted at a rare type of volcanic vent called a diatreme or pipe.

 

Kimberlite is a gas-rich, potassic ultramafic igneous rock that contains the minerals olivine, phlogopite, diopside, serpentine, calcite, and minor amounts of apatite, magnetite, chromite, garnet, diamond, and other upper mantle minerals. Upper mantle xenoliths are found in some kimberlite and provide clues to the magma's origin.

 

The source depth for kimberlite magmas is estimated at 200 km, more than twice as deep as the source region for most magmas. At a depth of 200 km the pressure is 60,000 times greater than the surface and the temperature is about 1500 C. Kimberlite magmas are rich in carbon dioxide and water which brings the magma quickly and violently to the surface. Most kimberlites occur as multiple intrusive events.

 

Kimberlite was named for the rock associated with diamonds in Kimberley, South Africa.

 

 

 

Only the best are used as gems.

 

Diamonds

[Jay-qu]

Have you seen the movie blood diamond? That spured me to do some reading on the topic - and I agree, its rather pointless! People are just holding onto a tradition.. there are plenty of hard shiny rocks that are cheaper - diamonds can even be grown now, but still people insist on 'real' diamonds.. figures