Human beings have been fascinated by all things shiny like precious metals and gems, most especially diamonds. Miners have since unearthed different kinds of precious stones with different properties and price tags.

Some of the well-known pieces of diamond include the Star of the East, and the crown jewels’ main gem, the Kohinoor. These gems are considered exquisite due to their unmatched qualities, most importantly their unusual size.

Diamonds have been commonly known as the hardest material on earth and they are used in pieces of jewelry and luxury watches. And although these gems are no longer a hard find, since anyone can buy certified diamonds online nowadays, it is still surprising to find newer and rarer kinds of precious stones.

First of its kind, The Matryoshka Diamond

Diamonds naturally form deep below the Earth’s surface at the depth of about 100 miles from above ground, just about the Earth’s Mantle. Some even form beyond 1500 miles which are considered extraordinary.

The crystals can grow in conditions with the combined high temperature and high pressure beneath the Earth’s surface. Each one of Earth’s diamonds is believed to have been brought to the surface by a kind of volcanic eruption that is considered deep-rooted. 

The Matryoshka diamond is named after the traditional Russian nesting dolls because of its interesting resemblance to the toys’ feature of having a similar material placed within itself.

This extremely one of a kind discovery has been unearthed in Yakutia, Russia by ALROSA’s mining and processing division at the Nyurba Mine.

The Matryoshka is considered as a gemological oddity as it is thought to be the only one of its kind in the entire planet to have been assessed by experts in October 2019.

Flaws in rough diamonds are pretty common as well as encasing different stuff from deep underground. In fact, it is due to these phenomena that our experts have been able to observe different minerals trapped inside a diamond. 

What makes the Matryoshka special is that a smaller, tabular diamond is encased inside a larger, hollow diamond with enough space to allow movement from the diamond within.

This ultra-rare diamond is also believed to be over 800million years old and is not a huge stone. The larger, outer stone only measures 4.8 x 4.9 x 2.8 mm with its internal cavity measuring about 6 cubic mm. The internal diamond which is tabular-shaped measures at merely 1.9 x 2.1 x 0.6 mm with a volume of only 1.6 cubic mm. 

The entire gem only weighs a total of 0.62 carats or about 0.124 grams, and the internal stone only accounts for only about 0.02 carats or roughly .004 grams.

The Matryoshka is indeed a bizarre find during the time, and who could tell whether something more extraordinary might come up.

Since it is first of its kind, and possibly the only one, its value is yet to be assigned. The stone is still subjected to other tests and studies.