Diamond

What's in a Name?

The original source of the English word diamond is the Greek word adamas, which means "unconquerable" or "invincible". Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance. Diamond is composed of carbon, and owes its hardness to the way these atoms are arranged. Each carbon atom is tightly linked to and centred between four others in a compact three-dimensional array. The result is the strongly bonded atomic structure that gives diamond its extreme hardness.

Indirectly, kimberlite owes its name to diamond. For more than a century at Kimberley, South Africa, an extraordinarily abundant harvest of diamonds has been extracted from deposits (pipes) of this rock. With the discovery, around 1869, that this rock carried diamonds within reach of the Earth's surface came the first identification of a primary source of diamonds. Previously, only alluvial diamonds were known in the world. Kimberley was the major producer of diamonds for most of the 20^th century, and the first underground diamond mines were operated there. In recognition of the significance of both this rock and this city to diamond collection, American geologist Henry Carvill Lewis named the rock kimberlite when he was there in 1872.

Ekati and Lac de Gras can both be loosely translated as "fat lake", and refer to the same area in the Northwest Territories. The many veins of white quartz that stripe the rock in the area resemble streaks of fat in caribou meat, a symbol of great value to local aboriginal people. Ekati is the traditional local aboriginal name, while Lac de Gras is a subsequent unofficial but prevalent translation into French of Fat Lake, the offical name of a large lake nearby. The mine that produced the Canadian diamonds in Nature's collection is located here, and was named Ekati by its owners.