Nagaland has been in the news after photos and videos of diamonds found in Wanching, a village in the state’s Mon district, went viral on social media. Video clips and photographs showed villagers gathered in large numbers, digging dirt on a hill and displaying small crystalline finds on their palms. But are those crystals really diamonds? Not quite.
This is everything you need to know about the Nagaland Diamond Rush
1. The rush started earlier this week. The district administration is trying to solve the mystery as the stones were found near the surface and not underground.
2. The state government had also deployed a team of geologists to investigate the problem.
3. The team of four geologists constituted by the geology and mining department on Saturday reportedly stated that the shiny rocks are not diamonds but only quartz crystals. The team that was supposed to arrive in the district on November 30 or December 1 arrived early to investigate after all the media rumors around the rocks.
4. The state is known to have latent gold and diamond reserves due to the ‘ophiolite’ rocks in its crust. According to geologists, ‘ophiolite’ refers to cuts in what used to be ocean floors before pushing with the continental crust more than 65 million years ago to form today’s Himalayan peaks.
5. According to an Indo-German study published in an issue of the journal ‘Current Science’ three years ago, the Indo-Myanmar ranges contain a mineral composed of manganese called “manganilmenite” which is found in ophiolytic rocks and therefore Therefore, it can potentially be a site for micro diamonds. Micro diamonds are miniscule diamonds that are less than one millimeter in size.
6. Bibhuranjan Nayak from the CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology in Bhubaneswar, one of the study’s authors, said that manganese-rich manganilmenite is a rare element and known to be indicators of diamonds.
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7. Professor GT Thong, from the Geology Department of Nagaland University, had disputed the diamond claim and claimed that brilliant stones are not diamonds. They are just quartz crystals commonly found in Nagaland, he said, adding that some people were trying to fool poor villagers by spreading this false narrative in the district.
8. The village council also doubted the diamond claim and had prohibited villagers from posting photos or videos related to the stones on the Internet. The city council has also restricted the entry of outsiders into the town, especially diamond hunters.
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