Many are unaware that the majority of diamonds are more than one billion years old. After they were formed deep in the earth’s crust, they slowly pushed up from the core of the earth to depths more accessible to humans.

That still doesn’t make diamond mining a walk in the park and it requires significant cost and effort. The yield of each diamond mine is different, but in general to find one carat’s worth of diamonds – a mere 0.2 grams – 200 kilograms of rock need to be mined and processed.

If that is not dazzling enough, think about the fact that only a very small percentage of these diamonds is of a quality high enough to be used in watches and other jewelry.