It has yet to be given a proper name. For now, the largest diamond ever mined in North America carries the nickname ‘552’ after its enormous carat weight.
Discovered at Diavik Diamond Mine in October 2018, the yellow diamond is on display at the Phillips auction house in New York City this week.
The diamond is the 25th largest rough cut diamond in the world, just ahead of the 550-carat Letseng Star mined in Lesotho.
552 is unique for its size and colour, as well as its age. According to Phillips it is around 3.1 billion years old, much older than most diamonds mined in the NWT.
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Processing diamonds involves crushing ore recovered from kimberlite pipes. The fact that the 552 survived this process intact is ‘remarkable’ the auction house states.
“It is remarkable that the 552 survived the recovery process, especially because Diavik’s processing plant is optimized for the recovery of smaller diamonds.”
This is one of the last times the diamond will be shown in its original size. After this, it will be cut into smaller stones and sold.
