The second-largest diamond ever discovered has been unearthed in Botswana, one of the world’s top diamond-producing countries, a Canadian mining company announced on Thursday.
The enormous 2,492-carat diamond was found at the Karowe Diamond Mine in northeastern Botswana using x-ray detection technology, Lucara Diamond Corp. revealed in a statement.
Lucara did not disclose the diamond’s value or its quality.
However, in terms of carats, this gem is surpassed only by the 3,016-carat Cullinan Diamond, discovered in South Africa in 1905.
“We are thrilled with the recovery of this extraordinary 2,492-carat diamond,” said Lucara president William Lamb in the statement.
Photographs released by the company show the diamond is roughly the size of a human palm.
This discovery is described as “one of the largest rough diamonds ever unearthed,” and was identified using Lucara’s Mega Diamond Recovery X-ray technology, which was installed in 2017 to detect and preserve large, high-value diamonds, the statement added.
Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi was scheduled to view the massive stone later on Thursday. The government also confirmed it as the second-largest diamond ever found worldwide.
Tobias Kormind, managing director of Europe’s largest online diamond jeweler, 77 Diamonds, confirmed that it is the largest rough diamond discovered since the Cullinan Diamond, parts of which are set in Britain’s crown jewels.
“This discovery is largely due to new technology that enables larger diamonds to be extracted from the ground without breaking. We can expect more significant finds like this in the future,” Kormind said.
Diamonds are a major source of income for Botswana, accounting for 30 percent of its GDP and 80 percent of its exports.
Before this discovery, the largest diamond found in Botswana was a 1,758-carat stone, also mined by Lucara at the Karowe mine in 2019 and named Sewelo.
In 2021, Lucara also discovered a 1,174-carat diamond in Botswana using the same x-ray technology.
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