carbonado

[prettygoodword]

carbonado (kahr-buh-NEY-doh) - n., a dark aggregate of diamond particles used in drills.



Thanks, WikiMedia!

Also, meat or fish that is scored before grilling or broiling, but that's not as important as black diamonds right now. Carbonados (or carbonadoes, both plurals are used) are aggregates of diamond, graphite, and trace minerals, and typically found nowhere near crystalline diamond deposits, and most commonly in Central African Republic and in Brazil. It's not quite as hard crystal diamond, but it's more durable, thus its utility. We got the word from Portuguese, literal meaning carbonated (as opposed to the meat meaning, which is from Spanish carbonada, carbonized), from from carbone, carbon, from French, from Latin carbō, coal/charcoal.

---L.

Comments

[full_metal_ox]

The idea of a near-indestructible black diamond as a carven gem has an obvious badass appeal. The execution is a lot harder, because of precisely those properties: carbonado, as a mass rather than a crystal, lacks the ready cleavage that makes crystalline diamonds cuttable, combining near-diamantine hardness with stubborn cohesiveness.

This is why, and how, it took Belgian gemcutter Peter Herbosch seven years to wrangle a lump of Guinean carbonado into the 612.34-carat Black Falcon: https://somethingaboutrocks.com/the-black-falcon-why-it-took-7-years-to-shape-the-worlds-biggest-cut-diamond/



(Image description: on a white ground, atop a reflective surface, is a massive black stone irregularly faceted into the likeness of a falcon’s head, in profile facing right; the crop area has been left coarsely pitted.)

[prettygoodword]

Man, it is hard to visually parse that, aside from the beak. Too much black.

[full_metal_ox]

I’m not having a problem with it, because—at least on my device, to my eyes—the light reflecting off some of the facets creates a greyscale palette within a clearly delineated outline. (Not trying to stir up a brown-and-blue versus white-and-gold dress wank; just fascinated by differences in perceptual ranges.)