Australia, The Newest Gem Quality Diamond Producer

When diamonds first began to be sought after for their value, India was the biggest producer of gem quality diamonds. After years of searching and mining, this supply slowly dwindled with high quality diamonds becoming scarce in India and only cheap diamonds being found on occasion. Soon, Africa took over the production of diamonds with other countries finding a pocket of diamonds every now and then. While Africa continues to be a big producer of diamonds, other countries have begun their own treasure hunts. Australia came on the scene in the 1970"s, but it wasn’t until 1979 when the biggest cache of diamonds was found: The Argyle Diamond Pipe.

A state-of-the-art diamond mine was soon in operation and now this mine produces more than 1/3 the annual production of diamonds worldwide. On top of the fantastic volume of diamonds mined, 40.9 million carats in 1983 alone, it has become the site of some of the most stupendous fancy colored diamonds to be found.

Typically, worldwide gem quality diamonds account for only 20% of the actual diamonds mined. The other diamonds mined are cheap diamonds that go into industrial use. The Argyle mine produces 45 percent gem quality material with an additional 5% being gem quality fancy colored pink diamonds. The ratio of cheap diamonds to gem quality is quite small when compared to other areas around the world. The discovery of the Argyle diamond cache placed Australia in the forefront as one of the leading producers of gem quality diamonds in the market today.


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