Diamanti radioattivi ottenuti da carbone con esplosioni nucleri sotterranee ?

Da: Landau Network-Centro Volta
"Nel 1992 è iniziato il primo processo di conversione militare di Chelyabinsk-70 che ha avuto come effetto quello di trasformare il 50% circa della R&D militare a scopi civili, nei settori delle fibre ottiche per telecomunicazioni, medicina-diagnostica nucleare e fabbricazione di diamanti industriali."

"Anche il "premio" concesso ai delinquenti della Magliana dallo Stato e dai suoi apparati è perfettamente verosimile: " Come ricompensa per il rapimento e la gestione del caso Moro - ha raccontato Ravasio - il Sismi consentì alla banda di compiere alcune rapine impunemente. Una avvenne nel 1981 all'aeroporto di Ciampino, quando i malavitosi travestiti da personale dell'aeroporto sottrassero da un aereo una valigetta contenente diamanti provenienti dal Sudafrica. Una seconda avvenne nei pressi di Montecitorio dove furono aperte molte cassette di sicurezza e da alcune, appartenenti a parlamentari, furono sottratti documenti che interessavano il Sismi ".

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~sek/wedding/mlynek.html

There are two ways that a diamond can have fancy color, one is natural color, and the other is by irradiation of common diamonds. Irradiation of diamonds is controversial treatment, because of fear of residual radioactivity that the diamond may have might be dangerous to the wearer. I guess steady dose of radiation may not be deemed too romantic. However, the method that gave residual radiation (by using radium salts) is not used today, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sets the standards for radiation levels of diamonds. (JCK, May 93) don't know what the level is in the US, but in Germany it is 0.07 bequerels. It appears that the GIA screens diamonds for radioactivity as a part of their testing. (JCK, Aug 92) No diamonds sold in the US are radioactive.

 The types of irradiation treatment used today include nuclear reactors, gamma ray facilities, and most often linear accelerators. It seems to me, that you just need a high energy source to knock out the carbon atoms out of the regular lattice into interstitial positions, hence creating F-centers. Dunno, according to the literature (e.g. JCK May 93), this type of treatment is stable, but I'd suspect that if the diamond is annealed that this color may disappear--hence, I'd tell your jeweler to be careful when mounting an irradiated stone.

The main way to induce color in diamonds today is irradiation. In 1905, an English chemist buried colorless diamonds in radium-bromide salts. Rind-like layers of blue, green, and yellow formed around the diamonds. Today, the stones are still too radioactive to wear! In 1942, a scientist at the University of Michigan used a cyclotron accelerator to safely and permanently color diamonds. Diamonds can now be colored green, blue, brown, yellow, and black. These diamonds are easily identifiable by major labs.

In 1920 the scientists at the Golden laboratories were transferred to Reno, Nevada, where they first worked in temporary quarters provided by the University of Nevada and later in a building constructed for them on the campus. One of Lind's investigations in Reno was on the coloring of diamonds by radiation, an effect first reported in 1904 by Sir William Crookes. Lind confirmed that diamonds exposed to alpha radiation acquire a brilliant green color and found that the coloration could be conveniently produced by exposure to radon gas. Green diamonds are extremely rare and their prices fabulous. Many diamonds have an unpleasant yellowish tinge, and are worthless as jewelry. The yellow color was masked by the green tinge produced by radiation, and at first it was thought that diamonds of high value might be produced from worthless ones. It was realized, however, that the artificial green diamonds were very radioactive and therefore unwearable. Something of a stir was created in the jewelry world by the prospect of unscrupulous dealers making fortunes by selling radioactive diamonds. After a famous jewelry firm had treated Lind with some hostility, he decided to carry out no further experiments on this sensitive matter; he did, however, think his results were of scientific interest, and he and Bardwell published an account of them in 1923.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Hundreds of radiationtreated gems are circulating in Asia and possibly Europe, endangering jewel dealers, cutters and owners, a leading gem expert warned today.

The stones - all of them a kind of stone known as cat's eyes - apparently were bombarded with radiation to change their color from yellow to the much more sought - after brown, said Ken Scarratt, president of the Bangkok Center for Gemstone Testing.

"When we first tested one with a Geiger counter, it pushed the needle off the dial," Scarratt said.

His center, Thailand's premier gem lab, has alerted Thai officials, jewelry trade associations and dealers around the world over fears the irradiated stones could cause skin cancer.

Authorities in Hong Kong and Indonesia already have reported finding some of the radioactive gems, and Scarratt said the stones are also believed to be circulating in Japan.

The stones emit 26 times the level of radiation accepted as safe in Asia and 52 times the acceptable level in the United States, according to tests at the Thai government's Office of Atomic Energy for Peace.

Scarratt said he believed the stones came from Indonesia, where they were bombarded with radiation in a nuclear reactor.

"The gems they start with are not usually the highest quality, but by irradiating them to change their color, the dealer can get five or 10 times the price he would have gotten for them in their normal state," said Tom Banker, managing director of GemEssence, a jewelry company in Bangkok. Banker said top quality chocolate-colored cat's eyes can get as much as $1,000 a carat wholesale, and twice that retail.

"They're much rarer than diamonds or rubies," Scarratt said.

 Trust forms the basis of the diamond business, according to Afic Diamonds Ltd's Gal Pelleg. "Our company has been going for 30 years, I am the third generation, I am not looking for a one-off customer, I want a long-term relationship," he said. And being able to trust a diamond dealer is crucial, especially if you are after coloured diamonds. Less scrupulous dealers in Eastern Europe have been known to pass off poor quality, radioactive coloured diamonds as the real thing. But Mr Pelleg promises quality. "We give a radiation-free guarantee and a government certificate," he said. Booth no: 2B24, 26

BRUSSELS, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Russian so-called businessmen may have sold radioactive gemstones on the black market in Europe's diamond capital, Antwerp, the city's judicial authorities warned on Thursday. They said the Russians had offered a consignment of black diamonds to the official Antwerp diamond exchange recently, asking some $74 million for them. They were turned down after an inspection of photographs of the gems which they produced and after certificates showing the diamonds came from California, Monaco and Paris proved to be false.

A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office said it was feared that the stones had been artificially blackened by subjecting them to radioactive Alpha rays, probably in a Russian nuclear power plant. The authorities feared the Russians had unloaded the gems on the black market, which operates alongside the official exchange in the northern Belgian port city.

``We stress that we have not actually seen these diamonds,'' the spokeswoman said.

But she said the authorities were worried enough to issue an appeal to anyone who suspected they might be in possession of any of the gems concerned to get in touch with them.
The use of Alpha rays to produce black diamonds is a common practice in the industry, but is normally done under strictly controlled conditions to avoid the danger of radioactivity.

Irradiation: Irradiation dates back to the early part of this century, when researchers discovered that bombarding diamonds with radium turned them green. None of those early efforts circulates today because the radium treatment rendered the diamonds so radioactive they've had to be housed in safes to this day (and for about 500 more years).

More modern irradiation treatments can turn diamonds many colors and leave no residual radiation. The treatments are designed to transform near colorless or less attractive colored diamonds into vivid green, pink, purple, canary yellow, orange and near black (extremely dark green).

Irradiated diamonds carry the same disclosure rules as those that are fracture filled, but detection is more difficult. Examination with a spectroscope will show lines in certain absorption bands of irradiated diamonds that aren't found in untreated stones. However, these bands can change, depending on the color of the diamond and the treatment process. (Note that all green diamonds get their color through irradiation - either through treatment in a lab or naturally in the ground. GIA has some promising leads for detecting irradiated diamonds. But there still is no concrete way to know whether that irradiation happened in the ground or in a lab.)

Diamond dealers have a less formal means of spotting potentially treated colored diamonds. Those with colors that look too good, too vivid or too uniform are thrown into a pile for a closer look.

Irradiation is permanent.