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diamonds truly are one of Mother Earth's
simplest yet most complex forms of
natural beauty comprised of just one
element carbon diamonds are considered
to be the hardest substance on earth and
derive their name from the Greek word
Adamas which means unconquered all
natural diamonds formed over billions of
years ago in some cases over more than 3
billion years and joining us to educate
us on all things and Dimond are
representatives from Lou Cara diamond
court William lamb and IRA Thomas
welcome to the show thank you this is so
much fascinating and such a fun topic I
mean let's face it we're talking about
diamonds this is spectacular let's first
talk about just the basics how diamonds
are formed some folks at home might not
know how this actually happens
sure well first off diamonds are
incredibly rare they are the purest form
of transparent carbon and they form
under tremendous pressure and depth
typically about 150 kilometres below the
earth's surface
they are then transported to the surface
of the earth in volcanoes and there are
very special volcanoes that we refer to
as kimberlites and those are the
deposits then that we we search for and
it can typically take up to 10 years of
searching before you find a kimberlite
deposit and thereafter it can be another
ten years before you actually determine
whether or not it contains enough
diamonds to be economic it's crazy to
think about all that goes into forming a
diamond I would imagine if you're mining
these gems these stones when you find
one it must feel incredible talk to me
about that well Beth can you imagine
what you feel if your phone rings at two
o'clock in the morning right you're
scared
exactly generally that's bad and when I
was chatting to our CEO offered we
recovered the Lacetti his words to me
were are you sitting down and of course
you then know that it's bad news and
what followed was congratulations we're
the first company in more than a hundred
years to recover a Dom it over a
thousand carats and a thousand carats is
significant and there's there's the
sense of euphoria but no real words to
explain
sort of how you actually feel it is
quite a momentous occasion and I think
anybody who works in the dominant
industry in their career I would imagine
your heart just beats a little bit
faster we actually have that Diamond
Olga's gonna show us that in just a few
minutes which we're super excited about
but let's talk about the process it's a
journey
quite a journey from finding the diamond
from mining it to what we see when we
think of diamonds in our jewelry stores
correct diamonds are incredibly rare and
they're very difficult to find and it
can take decades to actually make a
discovery that will go on to become a
commercially producing diamond mine so
the process is very involved we as
geologists spend a great deal of time
identifying areas to go and explore and
then if we are lucky enough to make a
discovery from drilling it then is a
whole second process where we actually
then have to go on to understand the
overall grade of these deposits in
carats per tonne and then we have to
understand the diamond value and one of
the things that I find incredibly
fascinating with the car you're not just
about the corporate bottom line when it
comes to diamonds there's so much more
about ethically mining diamonds and then
affecting the entire community as well
well it's a very good point oh and mine
is in Botswana and I think it's very
important for everybody to understand
that they are not our diamonds those
that Botswana's diamonds we are there
just as a facilitator to extract the
value provide our experience to be able
to add value back into the country and
if you look at Botswana there's a it's
really the perfect model where money has
actually made an enormous difference to
the overall economic situation within
the country but on a macro level the
impact that we have within the local
communities in which we operate it's
vitally important for us to make sure
that there are sustainable skills left
when we leave and we have a grant
program where we call it Keefe the Kuro
a emerging entrepreneurs fund where we
have grants which have been provided to
sort of very business orientated people
and it's through that process we we can
actually then encourage additional
businesses outside of the mining we
we'll be there long after we're gone you
both are just a wealth of knowledge
thank you so much for joining us this
morning has been absolute pleasure
chatting with you
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