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Brown Diamond

Brown Diamonds are meant to be the most common variety of natural diamonds. The brown color of the diamond makes it very less attractive as gemstones and mostly are used for industrial purposes. Brown Diamonds account for about 15% production in most of the mines. Improved marketing programs were done particularly in Australia and in The United States, which resulted in valuing the brown diamonds as gemstones and also it is referred to as "chocolate diamonds." A part of the important portion of the output of the Australian diamond mines is said to be brown stones.

There are several reasons and causes for the brown color which includes irradiation treatment, nickel impurities and lattice defects associated with plastic deformation. Particularly in pure diamonds, the latter is the main cause. A high temperature and pressure can heal the lattice defects and convert the brown diamonds into yellow or colorless stones.

OCCURANCE

Diamonds occur in different colors which includes various shades of pink and red, yellow, green, blue, orange, gray and black. Almost, the brown diamonds were measured to be worthless for jewelry before the development of the Argyle diamond mine in Australia in 1986. They were not even estimated on the diamond scale. They were mostly used for industrial purposes.

But still, brown diamonds became popular gems due to the marketing strategies which changed in 1980s. The change was probably due to the supply: the Argyle mine, with its 35 million carats (7,000 kg) of diamonds per year. It makes about one-third of global production of natural diamonds out of which 80% are of Argyle diamonds which are brown. When compared with other diamonds, the percentage of brown diamonds is less in other mines. Accordingly, scientific research has deeply enhanced on the causes of brown color in the diamond and also find ways to change it.