The name “dia­mond” comes from the Greek word adamas, mean­ing “invin­ci­ble.” This is due to its extreme hard­ness and chem­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty. Thanks to these unique char­ac­ter­is­tics, as well as its bril­liance, dia­monds have long attract­ed the atten­tion of mankind. The first men­tions of this min­er­al date back to the 8th cen­tu­ry BC, when it was first found in what is now India and Sri Lan­ka. Lat­er, start­ing in 1725, dia­monds were dis­cov­ered in Brazil, and lat­er in South Africa and Zaire.

Dia­monds are includ­ed in the list of min­er­als of nation­al impor­tance approved by Res­o­lu­tion of the Cab­i­net of Min­is­ters of Ukraine No. 827 of Decem­ber 12, 1994, as an abra­sive raw mate­r­i­al.

Diamond sizes and properties

Nat­ur­al dia­monds come in a vari­ety of sizes, rang­ing from micro­scop­ic grains to large crys­tals weigh­ing hun­dreds or even thou­sands of carats. The world’s largest dia­mond, the Cul­li­nan, weigh­ing 3,106 carats, was found in 1905 at the Pre­mier Mine in South Africa. A dia­mond weigh­ing one carat (0.2 grams) has a diam­e­ter of about 6.5 mm.

Types of diamonds

The glob­al mar­ket dis­tin­guish­es between jew­el­ry and indus­tri­al dia­monds. Jew­el­ry dia­monds are dis­tin­guished by their per­fect shape, high trans­paren­cy, and absence of defects. After spe­cial pro­cess­ing, they are turned into dia­monds. Indus­tri­al dia­monds include vari­eties used in indus­try, such as boron, balas, car­bona­do, and con­go. More than 80% of glob­al dia­mond pro­duc­tion is account­ed for by indus­tri­al types, which are used in the man­u­fac­ture of cut­ting, drilling, and grind­ing tools.

Diamond deposits and finds in Ukraine

No dia­mond deposits have been found in Ukraine, although man­i­fes­ta­tions of kim­ber­lite and lam­proite mag­ma­tism have been record­ed in Myko­laiv, Volyn and Kirovo­grad regions. A sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of dia­mond crys­tals have also been found in ter­rige­nous deposits of var­i­ous ages. Known finds are divid­ed into five main groups:

Although no large dia­mond deposits have been found in Ukraine, man­i­fes­ta­tions of kim­ber­lite and lam­proite mag­ma­tism, which indi­cate the pos­si­ble pres­ence of the min­er­al, have been record­ed in sev­er­al regions. In the Azov region, Vol­hy­nia, and Kirovohrad region, a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of crys­tals have been found in ter­rige­nous deposits of var­i­ous ages. These finds fall into sev­er­al cat­e­gories.

The first cat­e­go­ry includes rare kim­ber­lite and lam­proite crys­tals rang­ing in size from 0.5 to 3.5 mm. Such crys­tals are found in iso­lat­ed geo­log­i­cal for­ma­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Volyn and the Kirovohrad region. The sec­ond group con­sists of numer­ous small dia­mond grains from Neo­gene tita­ni­um-zir­co­ni­um plac­ers. The third cat­e­go­ry con­tains micro­crys­talline aggre­gates known as car­bona­do. Their ori­gin is not pre­cise­ly deter­mined, but they occur in tita­ni­um-zir­co­ni­um plac­ers in Ukraine.

Of con­sid­er­able inter­est are green crys­tals from Baltic deposits, which are approx­i­mate­ly 0.3 mm in size. They belong to the fourth cat­e­go­ry. The fifth group con­sists of impact dia­monds formed as a result of mete­orite falls. An exam­ple is the Bilynivs­ka astrob­leme in the Zhy­to­myr region, where a crater with a diam­e­ter of about 5 km was formed about 165 mil­lion years ago. The dia­mond con­tent in this area reach­es 9.8 carats per ton of rock.

Among the promis­ing areas for dia­mond explo­ration in Ukraine are the north of the Volyn-Podil­lia Plate, the North-West­ern region, the Pobuzh region, the Kirovo­grad region, and the Pri­a­zovskyi megablock. In the north­ern part of Volyn, frag­ments of kim­ber­lites have been found that are sim­i­lar in com­po­si­tion to the dia­mond-bear­ing rocks of Yaku­tia. In the Azov region, the Mriya lam­proite pipe has been dis­cov­ered, in which the pres­ence of small dia­mond grains has been estab­lished. Such find­ings sug­gest the pres­ence of new promis­ing deposits.

Promising exploration areas

In Ukraine, the north­ern part of the Volyn-Podil­lia Plate, the North-West­ern, Pobuzky, Kirovo­grad, and Mid­dle Dnieper regions are promis­ing for dia­mond explo­ration Ukrain­ian Shield (US). In the Azov region, the Mriya lam­proite pipe was dis­cov­ered, in which small dia­mond grains were found. These data indi­cate the pos­si­bil­i­ty of dia­mond-bear­ing rocks in these regions.

Industrial applications

Tech­ni­cal dia­monds are indis­pens­able in many indus­tries due to their extreme hard­ness. They are used to man­u­fac­ture cut­ters, drills, and abra­sive tools that ensure high pre­ci­sion and speed when pro­cess­ing hard mate­ri­als. For exam­ple, in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, they are used for cut­ting met­als and oth­er dif­fi­cult-to-machine mate­ri­als. In the min­ing indus­try, dia­mond tools are used to rein­force drill bits, which increas­es their effi­cien­cy and dura­bil­i­ty.

In addi­tion, dia­monds are the basis for the pro­duc­tion of grind­ing pastes and pow­ders used for pro­cess­ing sur­faces with high qual­i­ty require­ments. Most tech­ni­cal dia­monds are used in the man­u­fac­ture of grind­ing wheels, saws, and oth­er cut­ting tools. These tools are wide­ly used in the avi­a­tion, auto­mo­tive, and elec­tron­ics indus­tries for pro­cess­ing high-strength alloys and ceram­ics.

The con­tin­u­ous devel­op­ment of tech­nol­o­gy stim­u­lates the cre­ation of new types of syn­thet­ic dia­monds that are not infe­ri­or to nat­ur­al ones in terms of their char­ac­ter­is­tics. Syn­thet­ic dia­monds are now active­ly used in the pro­duc­tion of high-pre­ci­sion opti­cal devices, laser sys­tems, and even in the man­u­fac­ture of com­po­nents for quan­tum com­put­ers. This sig­nif­i­cant­ly expands their scope of appli­ca­tion and reduces depen­dence on lim­it­ed nat­ur­al resources.