Totally unique diamond with another gem trapped inside it is discovered in Russia

In meta news, a diamond with another diamond trapped inside it was discovered in Russia.

The diamond has been dubbed the Matryoshka diamond because it looks like Russian Matryoshka dolls - a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another - and it could be over 800 million years old.

It was discovered by specialists of the Yakutsk Diamond Trade Enterprise during a sorting process, but has now been handed over to Research and Development Geological Enterprise of ALROSA to study it.

Meanwhile, experts are still unclear on how the gem formed and how much it could be worth but they believe this is the first of its kind which is pretty exciting.

Oleg Kovalchuk, Deputy Director for innovations at ALROSA’s Research and Development Geological Enterprise told Mail Online: “As far as we know, there were no such diamonds in the history of global diamond mining yet.

“This is really a unique creation of nature, especially since nature does not like emptiness. Usually, some minerals are replaced by others without cavity formation.”

The diamond weighs 0.62 carats (0.124 grams), and has dimensions of just 4.8 x 4.9 x 2.8 mm (0.18 x 0.19 x 0.11 inches).

Based on their analysis, the researchers suggest that the internal diamond grew first, and the external one was formed later.

Kovalchuk explained: “The most interesting thing for us was to find out how the air space between the inner and outer diamonds was formed.

“We have two main hypotheses.

“According to the first version, a mantle mineral captured a diamond during its growth, and later it was dissolved in the Earth’s surface.

“According to the second version, a layer of porous polycrystalline diamond substance was formed inside the diamond because of ultra-fast growth, and more aggressive mantle processes subsequently dissolved it.

“Due to the presence of the dissolved zone, one diamond began to move freely inside another on the principle of matryoshka nesting doll.”

What a find.