Canadian miner Lucara Diamond announced this week the discovery of a 1,080-carat natural diamond at the Karowe mine in Botswana, southern Africa. It is a “type IIA superior white gem”, the category to which those with the highest purity and transparency belong, which constitute between 1% and 2% of all those extracted.
“It represents our fourth diamond of more than 1,000 carats since 2015,” said Eira Thomas, CEO of Lucara. According to the specialized site Natural Diamond Council, its enormous size (it measures 82.2 x 42.8 x 34.2 mm) makes it the seventh largest diamond and one of the five largest colorless diamonds ever discovered.
Botswana is the world‘s largest producer of diamonds and the Karowe mine is known to be home to some of the largest diamonds in history. It is estimated that about half come from inside this mine. “Lucara is extremely pleased to report the recovery of another large, high-quality gem diamond,” Thomas commented.
It is estimated that the new precious stone will be put up for sale for several million dollars and suffer the same fate as the Lesedi La Rona, found in Karowe in 2015 and acquired in 2017 by the Graff jewelry house for 53 million dollars. This rough diamond, the largest found in more than 100 years, weighed 1,109 carats and was cut, polished and turned into a 302-carat gem.
The Lesedi La Rona is considered the second largest discovered, behind the 3,106-carat Cullinan, found in 1905 near Pretoria, South Africa. According to Graff, it is considered the largest color and clarity gemstone ever certified by the American Gemological Institute and the largest square cut in the world. with RT