New “Hope” in Diamond Fingerprinting
As reported in the most recent issue of Geology, shining a white light on a blue diamond will result in blue brilliance but shine an ultraviolet light on the Hope diamond and you’ve got… red-orange? Strange but true. And researchers say that this new detail can hold the key to finding the mysterious relative stone of the famed blue diamond.
The Hope Diamond is one the most treasured and popular jewels in the world but it didn’t always start out so ‘small’. The original parent stone was a whopping 112 carats of blue diamond, taken from an Indian mine in the 17th century. The twinkling twilight colored gem was cut down to 67 carats, dubbed the French Blue and became part of the French Crown Jewels until its disappearance during the French Revolution. No fear; the Blue resurfaced in 1812, cut down to a significantly smaller size and, at its new 45 carat stature, was renamed the Hope Diamond.
Recent research done at the Hope’s homestead, the Smithsonian, has shown that while most blue diamond’s react to UV light by glowing an ever more brilliant blue tone the Hope Diamond oddly glows a fiery orange-red, further adding to this renowned stone’s mystifying appeal. Scientists have come to the conclusion that the common mix of boron and nitrogen that gives most azure stones their luster under ultraviolet lighting is quite a different in the Hope. In simpler terms, Hope still has a boron and nitrogen combo but it is a very untraditional blend that results in the reddish glow.
Researchers believe that the red tint is very rare and that all of the other blue diamonds’ mined around the same time as Hope, especially its parent stones, will have the same ethereal red radiance when examined under UV rays. By using this new found information, scientists anticipate finding the rest of Hope’s family that has been hacked off over time as well as identifying other stones that came from the same Indian mine in the mid 1600’s.
