Diamond Producing Countries – Australia

Diamond Producing Countries – Australia

if Canada, Russia and South Africa are the colorless diamond countries of choice, Australia, and its vast array of diamond inventory, provides the world with colored stones. When most people think of Australia they think of the country’s Argyle mine, which is the world’s largest producer (by volume) of rough diamond. The Argyle mine is different than many mines across the world because the production consists mainly of industrial quality diamonds (i.e. Brown). These diamonds have historically been used in cutting and shaping during manufacturing processes throughout the world. These type of diamonds are uniquely useful for industrial processes because they are:

•  cheap;
• plentiful;
• hard and strong.

Interestingly, the same elements that create brown industrial diamonds, also create gem quality diamonds for those that like the colored variety. The Argyle mine is renowned for its cognac and champagne colored diamonds (i.e. brown and dark yellow, but with very few clarity characteristics that affect the look of the diamond). The mine is also a wonderful source of the ridiculously rare pink diamond, which is almost impossible to find anywhere else.

When looking at this region, one needs to ask why this mine has so many variants in terms of color vis-à-vis other mines throughout the world. Given that diamonds get most of their color characteristics in their infant years we can assume that Australia had underground elements such as boron (blue diamonds), nitrogen (yellow diamonds), natural radiation (green, pink and red diamonds) and other underground variants and quirks that don’t exist in quantity in the other diamond producing countries of the world.

So for those that like naturally colored cognac, brown, gray, pink, blue, green or yellow color diamonds, read up on the Argyle mine because nine times out of 10 your diamond will have come from there.