An extremely rare rough diamond known as “Beating Heart” was discovered by Vallabh Dhanjibhai Global, a Surat-based diamond manufacturing and trading company. It has a moving smaller diamond inside of an internal cavity.
This 0.329-carat, D-colored diamond was discovered in October 2022 and will be used to promote natural diamonds by V D Global, which imports and exports polished diamonds. The business purchases rough diamonds from De Beers Group, the largest diamond company in the world.
V D Global owner Vallabh Vaghasia said, “One such consignment of rough diamonds came to our office in October 2022, and we were examining the diamonds. We found one unusual diamond in the lot during the examination. We found it unique as this diamond had a small diamond in its internal cavities. We examined it for a longer time to understand the natural making of rough diamonds, and later we named it ‘Beating Heart’ due to its unusual composition.”
Bhavya Vaghasia, the nephew of Vallabh Vaghasia, said, “After finding such a unique, rare rough diamond, we sent it to the De Beers office at its facilities in Maidenhead in the UK in November 2022 for research. We got it back a couple of months ago and kept it in our safe vault. We will not get it cut or polished. My uncle promotes natural diamonds, so this unique piece of diamond will be used as a medium to promote natural diamonds. We also plan to put the ‘Beating Heart’ diamond for public view at Bharat Diamond Bourse in Mumbai and look at several other ideas.”
Bhavya Vaghasia also shared the research documents sent by De Beers Company, along with the ‘Beating Heart’ diamond.
According to information in the De Beers research document, the team discovered that the cavity was created as a result of preferential etching of an intermediate layer of subpar fibrous diamond. The initial “core” would have been a growth of high-quality diamonds. A subsequent “outer coating” of gem-quality crystal was probably followed by a poor and fibrous layer of growth. Between its formation and its journey to the earth’s surface, the inferior layer was etched away at some point. Only the higher quality components, the outer diamond and the core, “survived” this process, resulting in a diamond that is able to move freely inside of an inner space in this instance.
Samantha Sibley, technical educator at De Beers Group Ignite, has been quoted in the document as saying: “I have certainly never seen anything like the ‘Beating Heart’ during my last 30 years in the diamond sector. Using the expertise of De Beers Group, we can shed light onto the formation and structure of this natural specimen and share these insights with a wider community of diamond professionals.”
The ‘Beating Heart’ now joins a small group of similar natural diamonds, including the widely publicised Matryoshka diamond from Siberia, Russia, first recorded in 2019. The specimen will not be cut and polished and will instead be maintained for research and educational purposes with the consent of VDG and with the support of De Beers Institute of Diamonds.
Vallabh Vaghasia started V D Global as a small manufacturing unit in Bhavnagar and it later expanded to Mumbai. The firm shut down its Bhavnagar manufacturing unit and started its bigger unit in Surat nearly 40 years ago. The company has a trading office in Mumbai and several other offices in different countries.
“Our family has been in the diamond industry for the last 50 years and we hail from Bhavnagar in Gujarat,” said Bhavya Vaghasia.