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Hi everyone! I just got done reading an article by OoreganoO about man-made diamonds, and it was good, although I don't think she quite understood how they were being manufactured.
Diamonds are made of carbon atoms arranged in a particular structure (a different structure of carbon atoms yields graphite, which is pencil lead). Diamonds are created deep in the Earth's crust when carbon is squished together under tremendous pressure from the movement of the crust. After a long time, the carbon is arranged so that it forms a diamond.
Man-made diamonds are made in hydraulic presses that mimic the pressures needed to create diamonds. There are several grades of man-made diamonds. Lower-quality diamonds are used for cutting tools and tools to sharpen metal. Higher quality diamonds are used in jewelry. Because of the very regular disbursement of pressure on the carbon in diamond presses, man-made diamonds are perfect or very near perfect gems. Natural diamonds are not, as the pressures in the Earth's crust are often uneven. Thus, natural diamonds have small imperfections and occlusions. In fact, the only way a jeweler can tell the difference between a natural diamond and a man-made diamond is that the man-made diamond is too perfect!
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