2nd-largest diamond ever unearthed found by Canadian company in Botswana

The second-largest diamond ever to be pulled from the Earth, coming in at a whopping 2,492 carats, was dug out of a mine in Botswana by a Canadian company.

The Vancouver-based Lucara Diamond Corp. announced the “remarkable find” in a press release, showing off photos of the fist-sized rock. The company has unearthed numerous other massive diamonds at its Karowe Mine in Botswana, but this as-of-yet-unnamed stone blows the rest out of the water.

The historic diamond was unveiled to the world at a viewing ceremony at the office of Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who was one of the first people to hold it. The gem, weighing in at half a kilogram, is considered the largest diamond found in over a century.

“This is history in the making,” said Naseem Lahri, the Botswana managing director for Lucara. “I am very proud. It is a product of Botswana.”

Officials said it was too early to value it or decide how it should be sold, but another diamond from the same mine sold for a record $63 million in 2016. That diamond, called the Constellation, was only 813 carats, less than a third of the size of the one that was recently discovered.

The title of largest diamond ever unearthed is held by the famous Cullinan Diamond, which was dug up in 1905 in South Africa while it was under British rule. The gem measured an incredible 3,106 carats but ended up being split into numerous smaller cut diamonds, some of which now grace the British Crown Jewels.

But there once existed an even larger diamond than the Cullinan, though it was an impure black diamond, known as a carbonado. It wasn’t unearthed, but rather found above ground in Brazil in the late 1800s. Geologists believe it could have originated from a meteorite.

The Sergio carbonado was broken up into small pieces to be used as industrial diamond drill bits, according to a paper from the University of New Hampshire. Carbonado is a high-density form of natural diamond and is one of the toughest materials on Earth.

Lucara said in a statement Wednesday that it was “thrilled” to announce the discovery of the 2,492-carat diamond, which was found intact with the help of a proprietary X-ray technology called “Mega Diamond Recovery X-ray Transmission.”

“This find not only showcases the remarkable potential of our Karowe Mine, but also upholds our strategic investment in cutting-edge (X-ray transmission) technology,” the company’s CEO William Lamb said.

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Lucara’s Karowe Mine has produced some of the largest diamonds to be mined in recent years. Since the mine opened in 2012, it has produced at least 328 diamonds over 100 carats.

This latest gem actually breaks one of the company’s own records. In 2019, the company found a huge 1,758-carat diamond in the Karowe Mine, which was then considered the second-biggest mined diamond in the world. The stone, named the Sewelo Diamond, was bought by Louis Vuitton for an undisclosed amount.

Before that, the company found a 1,109-carat diamond named the Lesedi La Rona Diamond at the Karowe Mine. It was bought by a British jeweller for $53 million in 2017.

Botswana, a country of 2.6 million people in southern Africa, is the second-biggest producer of natural diamonds behind Russia and has unearthed all of the world’s biggest stones in recent years.

Diamonds are formed when carbon atoms are squeezed together under high pressure deep underground. Scientists say most diamonds are at least a billion years old and some of them more than three billion years old.

Global News reached out to Lucara Diamond Corp. for more details but did not hear back by publication time.

— with files from The Associated Press

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