Diamonds were not always diamonds.  Diamonds come from deep within the earth and how they got there and into our jewelry is a great tale.  Billions of years ago, sources of carbon were buried in the earth.  Over time, this material sank deeper and deeper into the earth.  And over billions of years, with the pressure from the earth above and the heat from the Earth’s core, transformed it into a diamond. Diamonds may be the oldest thing you will every own being that it takes Mother Nature about 3 billion years to create one. Getting the diamonds closer to the Earth’s surface is the hard part. One way is by tectonic plate movement.  When one plate slides over another or collides, they come closer to the surface creating mountains like the Himalayas, Alp and Andes exposing the layers of earth, but this method is very rare. A more common way diamonds make it to the surface is through volcanic activity.  Diamonds trapped below the Earth’s crust travel with the liquid magma where it reaches an exit through a volcano.  Not all diamonds reach the surface during a volcanic eruption.  Some get trapped within small veins of magma inside the volcano. Once closer to the surface, the diamonds can be mined.

Diamonds are made from carbon.  The same carbon found in coal and in graphite used to make your pencil lead.  The thing that makes a diamond a diamond is the way the carbon atoms are arranged.  The graphite used in your pencil is soft and conducts electricity.  This is because the atoms in graphite are arranged in a pattern similar to a layered cake.  Each layer can slide off easily conducts electricity because there are free electrons.  A diamond however has its atoms arranged so tightly that it becomes the hardest natural substance known.