There are numerous ultramafic rocks in BC which appear to have been
formed deep in the crust or upper mantle where the pressures to
accompany rock melting temperatures are sufficient to turn C into
diamond. Tiny sparkles of light may establish vectors pointing to the
mother lode but may contain one microdiamond in a thousand. The
sampling task is difficult but it is doable. By the end of summer I
will have a few hundred grams with a thousand or more stones/gram
extracted from several tons of ore. But how does one assay in an
affordable way?
It is a job requiring an expert and the do-it-yourself approach
seems inadvisable so far. GIA can do it at about $100/stone but that
is adsurdly expensive. Is there a reliable yet inexpensive way in
which the testing could be done by experts/specialists?
If not, what kind of future technology might we anticipate? In his
1997 book “March of the Machines” automation expert Kevin Warwick
from Reading U says that if there is a specialized job which a human
can do, chances are a machine can be built to do it better. Do those
who test RI think it might be possible to develop a machine which
would scan microcrystals 24/7 and send out the music for “Lucy in
the sky with diamonds” by cell phone to prospector in field when a
diamond RI is found?