How old is the famous Hope Diamond on display at Smithsonians Natural History Museum?
The Hope diamond is at least a billion years old. You don’t see the original rock that carried the diamonds to the surface, but they have found some Kimberlites in India that do have evidence of diamonds in them. Those Kimberlites date to at least a billion years old. So that suggests the Hope diamond and similar diamonds found in India were brought to the surface at least a billion years ago and perhaps longer ago. So we’re comfortable saying that the Hope Diamond is at least a billion years old. When you look at the age spread of most other diamonds, it’s probably much older that that. What makes the Hope Diamond so unusual? Its size and color make it very unusual. When you think of the history of people mining diamonds, only one diamond has ever been found that has produced a dark-blue diamond the size and quality of the Hope Diamond. That gives you some sense of just how unusual and how remarkable it is. Again, I’ve always argued that it’s as remarkable as a natural history object,
