A rare, flawless, and blue-colored diamond went on display at LA's Natural History Museum on Friday, adding significant value and vibrant sparkle to its already existing gem collection.
The 12-carat gem, called the "Blue Moon Diamond" for its distinct color, size and clarity, is one of the rarest stones in the world. It was cut from a rough diamond that was found by miners in the Cullinan mine, which is located 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Pretoria in South Africa, this past January.
Diamonds can come in all sorts of colors, and blue is among the rarest of the rare. So this exceptional diamond has grabbed the attention of numerous scientists interested in finding out its origin.
"You get many different vivid blues, but this blue is an absolutely phenomenal color, the saturation is off the charts," Suzette Gomes, chief executive officer of the diamond manufacturer Cora International, told Reuters. "I have never, in all my time in diamonds, seen a color like this."
Fancy colored diamonds are more valuable compared to their colorless counterparts because, unlike most minerals, they obtain their brilliant colors from so-called "color centers." This means, according to the press release, that single or multiple non-carbon atoms replace carbon in the structure of the diamond, which can give rise to color. As for Blue Moon, it attributes its shimmering shade to trace amounts of boron in its structure - a mineral that has no business being some 90 miles (145 km) below the Earth's surface.
"Blue diamonds are rare because boron doesn't happen very often down there, so it's going to tell us more about the why, how, and maybe the when as well," Eloise Gaillou, a mineral sciences expert at the Natural History Museum, told Reuters.
There are only a few such rare and precious diamonds that exist, including the "Heart of Eternity," which is valued at $16 million, and the Hope diamond, a 45-carat stone that supposedly is the basis of the famed Heart of the Ocean diamond from the movie "Titanic."
The Blue Moon Diamond was purchased in its uncut form for $25.6 million by Cora International in February this year, and will be on loan in the Los Angeles museum until January 2015.