The best diamonds in the world are buried at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean – by Aislinn Laing (Quartz.com – October 29, 2017)

https://qz.com/

The best diamonds in the world come from the sea. Swept up from riverbeds by the mighty Orange River in southern Africa back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, their bumpy journey to the Atlantic polished them and broke up any stones with flaws, ensuring only the strongest and best survived.

Those diamonds landed off the coast of what is now Namibia, creating the world’s richest marine-diamond deposit. The country’s territorial waters are now estimated to hold 80 million carats, and the world’s biggest diamond miner, De Beers, has quietly built up an armada off the coast to vacuum up those precious gems.

Diamonds on land are running out; no economically viable new source has been found in 20 years.

Mines in Canada and Australia could run out in five years, analysts say, and Botswana, home to De Beers’ sales headquarters, will be bare by 2030.

Business consultancy Bain has predicted that even with bountiful sources like Russia and Namibia, the global supply of rough diamonds will decline by 2% per year until 2030.

For the rest of this article: https://qz.com/1110789/debeers-and-namibias-government-are-mining-diamonds-buried-at-the-bottom-of-the-atlantic-ocean/