Please, can anyone tell me what kind of device I can use to find Diamonds??

Question

I lost a very expensive cut diamond that i wanted to put in a ring, but i lost it in my backyard, through some very stupid events. Anyway if someone can help me or give me a website to visit where i can buy such a device a would appreciate it very much. Just a small device, not tooooo expensive,
Thanks alot!

Answer 1

Diamonds are not magnetic, radioactive, chargeable, or conductive. Therefore, there are no geophysical methods (such as metal detectors which measure a deflection in a primary electromagnetic field caused by a nearby conductive object) that could help find the diamond lost in your backyard.

However, diamonds do have three properties that could help in recovering it: (1) they are fluorescent, (2) they are resistant to weathering and (3) they have a high specific gravity - about 25% heavier than the normal silicate minerals in your backyard soil. These last two are the same physical properties that cause diamonds to accumulate in certain beach sands and river gravels.

So those properties give you two options to help find it: (1) with a "black light" and (2) with a size/gravity separation process.

Using a "black light" is a simple and cheap method and I would try this first. They are available at gem and mineral shops. Go out at night and see if you can find your missing diamond that way. It should show up as bright white or blue-white, but there may be many other objects that fluoresce as well. You may have to crawl under a blanket with the light if you have any street lights, as you will need it really dark for this to work, especially if there is grass. Be sure to read the instructions for the black light as they can damage your eye sight if not used properly.

The resistance to weathering is important because it won't "rot" or decompose into smaller diamond particles. That means you can separate the bulk of the soil and dirt in your backyard from the diamond-sized material, as most of the soil particles will be much smaller than the diamond.

If the diamond is really as expensive as you suggest, you can dig up the upper few centimeters of your backyard, pass the soil through a sieve (a screen) with a mesh size a little smaller than the lost diamond. All the soil and rock particles smaller than the diamond ("minus size") will pass through - and the diamond won't go through the sieve. If you have a lot of "plus size" material or a large yard, you could use several screen sizes that would help get the diamond into the right size fraction - assuming you know how big your diamond was.

Then you can separate the "plus size" material by any one of several methods such as heavy media separation, but the simplest would be a gold pan or sluice box similar to what placer gold miners use. The composition of the "heavy" material will depend on the composition of the soil in your backyard, but will typically consist of garnets and magnetite, and hopefully your lost diamond - it should be easily identified in the dark mineral backround!

Try:
http://www.keeneeng.com/

http://sluicebox.com/

and http://www.lifestylestore.com/ls_sluices.html

for information on sluice boxes and gravity separation methods.

The technology used to recover your lost diamond would be the same as mining companies use to mine alluvial diamonds in Namibia and Venezuela as well as gold in the Yukon. You can be 100% certain to recover your diamond with the right equipment, but the effort, cost, and damage to your backyard may be more than the diamond is worth.

Good luck and happy holidays!

Answer 2

IF it's still on the surface you could try looking for the 'glint' of reflected light from a torch at night (bit of a long shot I know).

If its been trodden in (quite likely since I assume everyone has been tramping all over the yard looking for it) I would go with Thin Kaboudit.

Answer 3

Dig up the yard and pass it through a sieve. As far as I am aware, there is no "device" that can detect diamonds!