The Invincible Diamond

The word diamond comes from the Greek "adamas" meaning invicible, a perfect description for a gem which is the hardest mineral known to man. 10 on the Moh scale. So what is the Moh scale anyway you ask. Moh's scale of mineral hardness quantifies the scratch resistance of minerals by comparing the ability of a harder material to scratch a softer one. The Moh's scale was created in 1812 by Friedrich Mohs, a German  minerologist. On the scale in position 7 is the quartz, 8 is Topaz, 9 is Corundum (Ruby is a variety of corundum) and 10 is the supreme diamond, the hardest natural occurring material. A natural allotrope of carbon. The crystal bond structure of diamonds give the stone its hardness.

Have you ever wondered what goes into cutting a rough diamond? There are several steps are called marking, cleaving, sawing, girdling, and faceting. The most popular style of cut is the brilliant cut, a round stone with 58 facets. A single cut is a simple form of cutting a round diamond with only 18 facets. Any style of diamond cutting other than the round brilliant or single cuts is called a fancy cut, or fancy shape; important fancy cuts include the marquise, emerald, oval, baguette, heart shape, pear shape, kite, triangle, and trilliant. The term melee is used to describe smaller brilliant-cut diamonds as well as all small diamonds that are used in embellishing mountings for larger gems.

for more on diamonds visit our diamond page.