A Russian doll diamond in the making

The presence of a diamond existing freely in an encasing diamond has invoked origins involving the escape of a gas from that diamond, or the dissolution of an impure diamond layer by melts or fluids, access in the second case, being gained by either the dissolution of diamond along dislocations or by breakage. The find of a diamond in which there is an octahedral garnet shell between two stages of diamond growths discerns a more realistic origin for this rare type of diamond. That origin involves the diamond coming to Earth’s surface, when the garnet partially breaks the outside diamond before being dissolved during the acid cleaning processes prior to diamond evaluation and sale. The inner diamond then moves freely in the cavity created.