Monday, August 2, 2021

Chemical fingerprints on blood diamonds

“Fortunately, the majority of gentlemen who are persuaded to steal things don’t really know a huge amount about science”

This is a choice quote in a fascinating article, New Australian technology tracks down gold thieves and blood diamonds ["New tech to trace dodgy diamonds" in the print edition] in the Australian Financial Review (AFR) Weekend.

It describes the work of John Watling, Chief Scientist at the company Source Certain. Basically by measuring the relative amounts of different trace elements [chemical impurities] in a sample of gold or diamond one can determine what mine that it has come from.


1 comment:

  1. Besides identifying blood diamonds, I suppose this may be used to help preserve the diamond monopoly held by De Beer!

    ReplyDelete

Emergence and quantum theories of gravity

Einstein’s theory of General Relativity successfully describes gravity and large scales of length and mass. In contrast, quantum theory desc...