Contents
Introduction
Diamonds are one of the most popular gemstones. They’re beautiful, sparkly, and expensive.
But why? Why are diamonds so much more expensive than other precious metals like gold?
It’s simple: Because they’re rarer! To understand how this unique gem gets its value, let’s look at why diamond is more expensive than gold.
The Diamond Age.
You may have heard that diamonds are the hardest substance on Earth. Well, it’s true; they’re more complex than any other mineral known to humankind. But why is this so important?
If you’re looking at a diamond ring and thinking, “What do I care if it’s hard or not?” you might be surprised to learn that hardness has a lot to do with price!
Why do diamonds cost so much? It has nothing to do with how expensive your boyfriend is (that’s another story for another time).
The answer lies in how diamonds form deep within our planet—and how we get them out of there.
Diamonds form from pure carbon trapped inside rocks at high temperatures and pressures over millions of years.
That means that when we dig up diamonds from below ground, those precious stones were forged hundreds of miles below our feet in extreme conditions!
The diamond supply.
It’s not just the supply of diamonds that makes them more expensive than gold. Diamonds are also formed under extremely high pressure and temperature, which can only happen deep in the earth.
Diamonds are formed in kimberlite pipes—rock formations containing crystals with a metallic core, like diamonds.
When volcanic eruptions occur near these kimberlite pipes, they can carry small pieces of diamonds to the surface, where they’re then available for mining.
Diamonds can also be formed by meteorites hitting earth and landing on top of ancient lava flows with diamonds already inside them;
these diamonds are called impactites because they were created by impacts from meteors or asteroids (impactites aren’t as valuable as natural diamonds).
Diamonds aren’t just used for jewelry, but they are used in plenty of other things.
But diamonds aren’t just used for jewelry. They’re also used in plenty of other things.
In the electronics industry, they are used in producing semiconductors because they have a much higher melting point than silicon and can withstand extreme temperatures (up to 3,700 degrees Fahrenheit).
These properties are beneficial for industrial applications like oil drilling or mining.
You might be surprised to learn that diamonds are also used in scientific instruments, such as the Hubble Space Telescope or your smartphone camera lens.
It’s true: Your beloved iPhone has an optical element made out of pure synthetic diamond crystals on its camera lens that can focus light accurately—an important feature when taking photos indoors or at night.
Gold is rare, but diamonds are even rarer.
What makes diamonds so rare and therefore expensive? There are several reasons for this.
First off, it’s true that gold is a much more abundant mineral than diamond. However, the demand for gold is higher than the supply, which makes its price lower than that of diamonds.
Diamonds are much harder to find than gold because they have to be mined from very deep within the earth’s crust before being cut into gems—and even then, they’re difficult to recognize unless they’re already on your finger (or ear).
The small size of these stones also means that only about 0.3% of all carbon comes in a diamond form, making them even rarer than one might think.
Only a tiny percentage of Earth’s carbon content exists as gem-quality diamonds, so there’s a limited supply available at any given time. Thus, they’re expensive compared to other precious metals like silver or platinum.
While gold is beautiful and precious, diamonds are so rare that they’re even more expensive than gold!
Because of all the reasons above, gold is a much more popular choice for jewelry than diamonds.
Gold is also softer and can be easily bent or shaped into different forms. -This makes it easier to remake an existing piece of jewelry into something new.
However, it’s still scarce that someone would want to melt down their gold jewelry and make something else out of it—it’s usually just fine as-is.
There are many other reasons why diamonds cost so much more than gold: they’re more complex and less malleable than most other metals, which means they’re challenging to melt down or reshape;
they’re often set in expensive settings because the base price of the diamond itself already costs so much money, etc.
Conclusion
There you have it! The reason why diamonds are more expensive than gold. It’s not just because they’re beautiful and shiny but also because there aren’t very many of them in the world.
Check out our blog post here if you want to know more about diamonds or other precious gems.
