Diamonds in Nature

Diamonds in Nature: A Guide to Rough Diamonds illustrates the range of crystal shapes, colours, surface textures, and mineral inclusions of rough, uncut, naturally forming diamonds. Each chapter contains photographs that show the unique physical characteristics of the diamonds, and the accompanying text describes the processes that led to their formation. This book is an invaluable reference manual for professional geoscientists—including gemmologists and exploration geologists.

From the reviews:“The focus of the book is exclusively on natural uncut diamonds, their characteristic features, and their mineral and fluid inclusions. How these provide insights into the growth processes of diamonds and the workings of our planet’s interior is clearly developed and explained. The authors achieve their aims in an excellent style. ... The book should also appeal to a wider audience of people outside of the earth sciences who wish to become acquainted with a fascinating detective story that has already placed these small carbon crystals in a unique position as closed-system repositories for evidence of geologic processes that took place billions of years ago.” (John Gurney, Economic Geology, Vol. 106 (8), December 2011)“The authors are from the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton. … They have done an excellent job in describing the geology and crystallography of natural diamonds. This book is a scholarly work: each statement has a citation to one or more of the 325 research papers alphabetically listed in References. … Exactly a century after Fersmann and Goldschmidt published their book … we now have the pleasure of a highly recommended, colourful and up-to-date successor, also produced in Heidelberg.” (Moreton Moore, Crystallography Reviews, Vol. 18 (4), 2012) 

Ralf Tappert is a mineralogist who has studied diamonds and their host rocks from localities worldwide, including Canada, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia. He has worked as a university researcher and consultant, and he has published a number of articles about diamonds in international scientific journals. Michelle Tappert is a geologist and a writer. In addition to studying the spectroscopy of rocks and minerals as a university researcher, she has worked as a consultant for the mineral exploration industry, searching for diamonds and other commodities.