All language subtitles for Nova S43E18 Treasures of the Earth Gems.DVDRip.en.PBS

Gemstones, precious metals,

and power...

Building blocks of civilization

But how are they created?

Our Earth is a master chef

She knows how to cook

These gems are really forged

in unimaginable conditions
deep inside the planet

How did metal shape our past?

I love steel

It's actually the
backbone of our society

And how will these gifts be used
to build the tools of tomorrow?

Such a simple element has
enabled all of the technology

that surrounds us today

It is amazing that this came

from the sand that
exists in our deserts

We're going to launch
this incredible telescope,

and we're going to send
it a million miles into space

from the earth

to actually unlock the
secrets of the universe

And it will all rely on
two ounces of gold

In this episode, we go behind
the sparkle of gemstones

When you look into
a beautiful gemstone,

you're seeing something
quite miraculous

What are the secrets
to their beauty?

This is no magic trick

This is just chemistry

And what scientific
mysteries do they reveal?

These are the biggest questions
you can answer about geology

It's amazing the role
diamonds have played

in understanding
Earth as a whole

"Treasures of the Earth,"
right now on NOVA.

All around us, we see
Earth's abundance:

spectacular mountains,
Caribbean blue seas,

and plentiful crops

But Earth's bounty
is not just skin deep

Some of our most important
resources are forged

even deeper inside our planet

These are the minerals that
help make our modern world

and inspire us
with their beauty:

gemstones like diamond,
ruby, and emerald

We guard these treasures

and cherish them as
symbols of our love

But they also hold secrets

about the formation
of Earth itself

Just off Central Park,

along Manhattan's
famous 5th Avenue,

America's premier
jeweler, Tiffany,

has been selling these treasures

to some of the
world's richest people,

from the Gilded Age to
the heydays of Hollywood

The store even played a starring
role in this famous 1961 movie,

Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Tiffany's is the quintessential
jeweler for the world

Melvyn Kirtley,

Tiffany's chief gemologist,
says that last year,

Tiffany sold more than
$4 billion worth of jewelry

Our goal is to really
search for the ultimate...

Those unique, rare specimens

When you look into
a beautiful gemstone,

you're seeing something
quite miraculous

You know, it's arresting

Here, we've got really

the most beautiful
emerald necklace

with this magnificent
45-carat emerald

The color is just verdant green

It's just got this
incredible saturation to it

This is really truly spectacular

At Tiffany's workshop,

top quality gems are
crafted into prized jewelry

One piece can take
months to create

That's when you get
the beauty from the stone

That's when you get
the life, the brilliance

That's the "wow" effect

But the story of how
these gems were created

goes back billions of years

forged in some of the
most tortuous conditions

found anywhere on Earth

How can such
violence and intensity

create such delicate beauty?

Clues about the
massive force required

lie just off the coast of China

Here, geologist Lung Chan

searches for evidence
in the ancient rocks

It seems like the
rocks are talking to me,

and there is
always a story to tell

Hiding behind the tranquility

and the peacefulness
of the rocks

is a story of violence and
tremendous complexities

It doesn't take long for Chan

to find a layer of rock
folded nearly in half

by the forces that
create earthquakes

This rock layer used to
be flat-lying and continuous

Now it's completely
folded, forming a V-shape

The same kind of violent
forces gave Earth gemstones

Every gemstone is forged
by a unique geologic recipe

of chemistry, heat,
and intense pressure

Our Earth is a master chef

Setting the temperature
and pressure just right,

using the right ingredients,

she knows how to cook
various kinds of gemstones

The most treasured of all gems

are created hundreds of
miles below the earth's surface

It is here

where extremely high
pressures and hot temperatures

turn one of Earth's
most basic elements

into exquisite hard
crystals: diamonds

So what are diamonds made of?

To discover the ingredients

requires doing something
horrifying for any gem lover:

torching a perfectly
good diamond,

which is exactly what
chemist Andrea Sella will do

We often hear that

diamonds are forever

But when we put this
guy into a really hot flame

and drop him into liquid
oxygen, it begins to sparkle

And look... The
diamond is burning away

As it burns, it gets smaller
and smaller and smaller

Eventually, it disappears

It's gone

We can burn it away to
nothing except carbon dioxide

And that's because diamonds

are made of nothing
more than carbon

So we've taken

the hardest natural material
and we've made it disappear,

and yet, this is no magic trick

This is just chemistry

Carbon is one of Earth's
most common elements...

Nature's building blocks

It is essential to
all living things...

Plants, animals,
even our bodies...

And crucial to
man-made structures

throughout our modern world

Carbon's versatility can
be seen in two things,

both pure carbon but
completely different:

diamonds and graphite,
or ordinary pencil lead

When you look at these two,

the diamond and
the tip of the pencil,

it seems almost insane to
imagine that they're made

of the same substance,
the same element carbon

And yet what it comes down to

is the way in which those
carbons are linked together

The way in which
atoms link together

is the essence of chemistry

In diamonds, one carbon
atom bonds with four others

This is repeated to create

a dense, cage-like
crystal structure

But in pencil lead, carbon
bonds with only three others,

forming flat sheets that
stack like a deck of cards

The sheets lie on
top of each other

but are not fully bonded

They can slide
one past the other,

and when we write with a
pencil, what we're doing is

we're peeling those sheets
off one or two at a time,

leaving a little gray
trail, a little bit like a snail

So why do carbon atoms
sometimes make three bonds,

like in pencil lead,
and at other times four?

This is just an
extraordinary thing

How can one of
the softest materials,

one of the hardest materials,
both be formed of pure carbon?

Bob Hazen of the Deep
Carbon Observatory

says the difference between
pencil lead and diamond

can be explained
by the environment

where the bonds form

If you have fairly low pressure,
the atoms can spread out,

they don't feel
compressed or strained,

and so you have a much
more relaxed crystal structure

Graphite, or pencil lead,

forms in low pressure,
like near Earth's surface

But diamonds only form

hundreds of miles
deep inside our planet,

where the temperatures
and pressures are extreme

As soon as you get pressure,
the atoms are forced together

They have to be more and
more efficiently packed together

And so the thing
about diamond is

carbon atoms are incredibly
efficiently packaged together

Those efficient bonds

are the key to making
these prized treasures

Recently, a remarkable diamond,

the second largest gem-quality
stone ever discovered,

was found in Botswana,

weighing in at an
incredible 1,109 carats

It's truly historical

This could be, you know,
the most incredible piece

of a diamond ever cut

The estimated value of
the diamond is $70 million

That's a whole lot
of money for a rock

that is nothing more than
efficiently organized carbon

The secret of that efficient
organization of atoms

lies deep within
the architecture

of the carbon atom itself

At the atom's
center is a nucleus

with six protons and neutrons

Surrounding the nucleus

are an equal number
of orbiting electrons,

arranged in what
are called shells

The innermost shell can
hold only two electrons

The second shell can hold eight

But carbon's six electrons

only fill up half
of that outer shell,

leaving the atom unstable

Every atom wants to find

a comfortable
electron arrangement...

A filled shell

Now, carbon is
in a funny position

It's got six electrons,

so it's four away from two,
it's four away from ten...

It's in the middle

So carbon is never
quite that happy

It's always kind of striving

to find a different
configuration

The configuration when
carbon is most happy

is when its electron
shells are filled,

like in this diamond crystal

But there are many combinations
that can fill carbon's shells,

and that's why it's such
an important element

in our natural world

It even plays a starring role
at this glamorous Tiffany gala

The movie stars' hair
is made of protein,

which is packed with carbon

Their flawless skin
and high cheekbones

have a lot of carbon, too

And of course under the extreme
conditions deep inside Earth,

carbon atoms bond
into the exquisitely hard,

exquisitely clear,

and exquisitely
expensive diamond

But it took a lot
more than beauty

for these diamonds
to get to the red carpet

Diamonds are forced
to Earth's surface

in a very special kind
of volcanic eruption

The rock inside

traveled hundreds of
miles through Earth's mantle

at up to 30 miles an hour

The diamond just
comes along for the ride

Raw diamond crystals can be
seen still embedded in this rock,

known as kimberlite

The diamond was just
an accidental passenger

en route to the
surface of the earth

These eruptions leave behind

very deep funnels of
kimberlite and diamond,

which is why mining diamonds

takes a severe toll
on the landscape,

and, at times, an even
bigger toll on humans

In places like
Sierra Leone, Africa,

uncontrolled mining has
led to horrific conditions

for the miners

The diamonds they find

can head straight
for a black market

that have funded
warlords and weapons

in brutal civil wars

These are the so-called
blood diamonds

Diamonds that
are legally exported

are subject to strict controls

and sent to just a handful of
diamond centers worldwide

90% of America's diamonds
pass through one city:

New York, famous for
its hustle-bustle and bling

This is 47th Street,
the Diamond District,

where trader Ronnie Vanderlinden

is one of its many
unofficial mayors

Welcome to 47th Street...
the land of everything

But what this street
is really known for,

what it's about, is its
magnificent diamonds

I like the shizzle

I like it all

Today, he has a little
business with Gregory Jezarian

Gregory!

Hey Ronnie, how are
you? How are you, buddy?

Do you have those stones? I do

Negotiating the sale

of a quarter-of-a-million
dollar square-shaped diamond

I think this might be the winner

A key step to make a diamond
worth that kind of money

is the cut, which reveals

the sparkling
beauty of the stone

Michael Kaufman is a
master diamond cutter

I've been in the
business since 1966

I started off as an
apprentice diamond cutter

I was a baby, literally a baby

Today, he's repairing
a chipped diamond

While diamonds are the
hardest material on Earth,

they aren't very tough,

which means if you strike
it at the just the right angle

between the planes of
carbon atoms, it will break

This line of weakness is
called the cleavage grain

I'm going to look for
the grain of the stone

People don't realize
that diamond has grain

just like wood has grain

If you have this entire building

and put it on top of this
diamond in the street,

it will make a
hole in the street

But yet if you hit it
on the cleaving grain,

it will take off a small piece...
Sometimes not so small

That grain is also key

to transforming the rough rock
into a shimmering faceted gem

When the job is done

and all the facets are
where they should be

and I see the brilliance, I
see that stone talk to me

It says, "Michael,
you did a good job"

Revealing a diamond's beauty

comes down to the careful
arrangement of these facets

Diamonds need to be cut

in very, very
specific parameters

to get it to
maximize light return

This is the round brilliant cut,

one of the most popular
shapes in the world

When a diamond is
proportioned in a perfect way,

it will act as a hall of mirrors

If it's not, then the light
will push out of the back

and you'll basically lose light

In 1919, a Belgian mathematician
named Marcel Tolkowsky

used principles of
optical physics and math

to determine the optimum
number and angle of facets

to create a diamond that
perfectly caught the light

When he came along,

it was more putting a science
to the actual proportions

and understanding
that they matter

Imagine this is an uncut crystal
with a smooth surface on it,

and now we're going to
shine green light onto it

Debbie Berebichez, a physicist,

explains how light can
be captured in a crystal

by using a green laser
so our camera can see it

So we see that spot on the wall

because most of the
light is getting transmitted

to the other side

Now, if instead we
use a faceted crystal,

we can see how most of
the light is getting trapped

and bouncing around
inside the crystal,

and a lot of it is coming
back reflected into our eyes,

very much like a hall of mirrors

Tolkowsky found that a diamond

cut with nearly 60
carefully angled facets

created an exquisite geometry

that reflected light around
the stone many times,

then bounced it
out through the top

and into our eyes

We call this
phenomenon "brilliance"

When white light
enters a diamond

at just the right angle,
something extraordinary happens:

these facets,

along with how the diamond
affects wavelengths of light,

disperse it into a
rainbow of colors

like light through a prism

This creates the
flashes of color called fire

Because of diamond's hardness,

the polishing of the facets
create such incredible mirrors

that the diamond bounces
the light back to the eye

So you're really getting
a combination of light

to give this beautiful
dispersion and sparkle

It turns out that a
diamond's brilliant sparkle

comes down to optical physics...
Something truly to sing about

♪ But square cut or pear shape ♪

♪ These rocks don't
lose their shape ♪

♪ Diamonds are a
girl's best friend ♪

As Marilyn Monroe
did in this 1953 classic

♪ Tiffany's ♪

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

♪ Cartier ♪

In Washington D C, there's
a very special diamond

that Marilyn Monroe would surely
have loved to get her hands on

6:00 a m

Inside the Smithsonian's
Museum of Natural History,

the gem gallery is on lockdown

Curator of Gems Jeffery Post

is removing the
museum's most infamous

and most visited exhibit
from its bulletproof case

What I'm holding right now

is probably the world's
most famous diamond

This is the Hope Diamond

It is a large blue diamond,
45-and-a-half carats,

the largest, finest blue
diamond that we know of

anywhere in the world

Post says it is impossible to
estimate the diamond's value

in part because of its
long history of intrigue

It was bought in
the 17th century

by Jean Baptiste Tavernier

and sold to King
Louis XIV of France

It is believed that during
the French Revolution,

the diamond was
smuggled to London, re-cut,

then purchased
by the Hope family,

where it got it name

But only after it was sold

to the American socialite
Evelyn Walsh McLean,

whose family was soon
struck by a series of tragedies,

did the diamond earn its
famed reputation of being cursed

So finally, this legendary
and mysterious diamond

was purchased by the
jeweler Harry Winston

and given to the
Smithsonian Institution

There is, of course,
no scientific way

to shed light on the
diamond's alleged curse,

but there is definitely science
behind its magical blue color

And today, Jeffery Post
wants to reveal the secret

The precious diamond is
put into a mass spectrometer,

where a laser is used to
break free individual atoms

that then travel
through the machine

A clear diamond is pure carbon,

so all the atoms would
travel at the same speed

But today, the machine
detects a few atoms flying faster

This means there is an
impurity in the diamond

Boron, yeah, right here

Traces of a lighter
element called boron

On average, our measurements
revealed the Hope Diamond

has about a half of a
part per million of boron

It is the tiny little bit

that is just enough to
make a colorless diamond

the deep, dark blue color that
we know as the Hope Diamond

But boron isn't blue,

so why does this
impurity change the color?

It results from how
different atoms handle light

The carbon atoms in a diamond

are bound together
by their electrons,

but these electrons can
also interact with light

when it shines into the gem

In clear diamond crystals,

since all the electrons
are bound together,

all the colors in white
light pass through

In the Hope Diamond,

an atom of boron
replaces a carbon atom,

but boron can only
make three bonds, not four

That changes the electronic
structure of the diamond

When white light hits this atom,

it absorbs some of the
wavelengths of red light

But the blue light
passes right through,

making the Hope Diamond
appear its unique color of blue

The Hope Diamond is one
of the most unique objects

in the world

Look at how many
other blue diamonds

comparable to the Hope
Diamond have been found,

and the answer is zero

There may not be another
diamond quite like the Hope,

but gems can come in a
surprising array of colors

We all know emeralds are green,
rubies red, and sapphires blue

Well, frankly, that's
just plain wrong

Is this a sapphire?

This is blue

It looks like a sapphire,
it's nice and big,

but it's not sapphire

You can't go by color

In fact, none of these
green stones are emeralds

Yet surprisingly, all of these
are what we call sapphires

Color is something that
Mike Scott is passionate about

and wants to understand

in everything from
brilliant gemstones

to the koi fish he
keeps in his backyard

Color brings out
all kinds of emotion,

just like smells do

I enjoy the complexity

or understanding
how things works

To me, color sets
what mood I'm in

Scott has amassed
what is considered

one the world's most
important collections of gems

outside of royal family

Mike Scott is one of the world's
great connoisseurs of gems

He goes out of his way

to find the most
beautiful colored stones,

and each of those colored
stones is telling us a story

Part of my collection
is to just show

there's more to the world than
sapphire, ruby, and emerald

Scott may not have a
diamond quite like the Hope,

but he's collected diamonds
in almost every known color,

including yellow, green,
pink, and even the rarest:

red

Scott's rainbow collection
was made possible

by Apple Computers

He made his fortune
as the first CEO,

taking it from
Steve Jobs' garage

to going public on Wall Street

I hand-built the
first ten Apple IIs

But Scott says his
first task at Apple

came not from Steve Jobs,

but the other
employees at the time

My first job

as president at Apple

was to tell Steve Jobs
he had to take a bath

It seems that Steve's special
diet was creating body odor

He negotiates everything,

so he agreed to take
a bath more often

and I had to agree
to read his diet book,

hopefully that it would
cause me to lose some weight,

which it didn't

Scott didn't plan on investing
his fortune in gemstones,

but he got hooked

the first time he tried to
buy himself an expensive one

because it turned
out to be a fake

That got me
further interested in

how do you know the difference

since you can't
just tell by color

and by looking at the stone

- A - physicist by training,

Scott wants to better understand
the nature of minerals...

Materials that are
crystalline in structure

and include gemstones

Scott is so devoted
to this pursuit

that he has removed
all the traditional furniture

from his Silicon
Valley living room

and turned it into a
world-class gem and mineral lab

Out with the couch, in with
the Raman spectrometer

Mike Scott has put

part of his fortune

into building the world's
largest database of minerals:

their structures,
their properties,

their optical characteristics

So we understand
this rich realm,

the kingdom of minerals,
in much more complexity

and completeness
than we ever have before

Today, Scott is analyzing
a sapphire: a 30 carat one

This one's from Sri Lanka

Like the Hope
Diamond, it's blue,

but how it got its color

is a completely
different geologic story

Sapphires are actually
more rare than diamonds

Making one requires the force
of moving mountains, literally

Sapphires are formed
in Earth's crust...

Not the deeper mantle
where diamonds form...

During the geologic
process of plate tectonics

All the continents on Earth
ride on giant tectonic plates

pushed and pulled by
heat deep within the earth

For likely billions of years,

the continents
have moved around,

crashing over and
under each other

Causing earthquakes and
pushing up huge mountains

Beneath Earth's surface,

heat and pressure created
from the massive friction

liquefy rock that reforms
into new minerals,

sometimes sapphires

Many of the best sapphires

come from the island
nation of Sri Lanka,

off the coast of India, which
was caught in the middle

of colliding plates
600 million years ago

Gemologist Andy Lucas

is on the hunt for
these precious stones,

a task that requires going
down in a traditional pit mine

Hi

Can I take a look?

Thank you, sir

Entering the mine, Lucas
finds himself in a wet,

potentially dangerous
environment

Now, you can see
the wooden braces,

you can see the
struts supporting them

Now, they have a problem
here with groundwater,

so they can't go too deep,

and they have to be
careful for the erosion

so they don't have
a tunnel cave-in

What they are mining is
a loose gravel called illam

And they'll take this metal
bar, this pointed metal bar

and they'll dig
it into the illam

Then they put it in bags

The bags are hoisted up on ropes

Andy's route back up the
slippery bamboo scaffold

is a bit tougher

Once on the surface again,
Andy examines the gravel illam

It's going to look
like a lot of mud,

but also with some
pebbles in there

Now, I'm not seeing
any gemstones yet,

but after washing bag after bag
after bag of this muddy gravel,

then they might find something,

maybe something that
could change their lives

The illam is sediment
comprised of rocks and dirt

that washed here from upstream

Nature kind of did
a bit of the work

and concentrated them in an area

If a miner is lucky enough

to find a gemstone
in this loose illam,

it is sent to the city to be
polished into true treasures

Armil Sammoon and his family

specialize in polishing
and cutting sapphires

My family has been in the
business for five generations

It comes into your blood
and then it stays there

It is the beauty of the stone

It's just beautiful

You can just sit for
hours just drooling over it

Today, they are at work

trying to figure out how to
cut a 90-carat rough sapphire

A finished gem jumps in value

when it hits a larger threshold
like ten, 20, or 50 carats

It's almost a perfect crystal

Sammoon's goal
is to cut this down

to a well faceted 50-carat gem,

but that will take
careful planning

We can sit on it for
two weeks, ten days,

just, you know,
fool around with it,

think what's best

Come back, take a look,

have a cup of tea,

and then think about it

Make the wrong decision

and it could be a costly mistake

One of the world's
most celebrated gems

is the 12-carat
sapphire from Sri Lanka

that was worn as an
engagement ring by Lady Diana

Today, the same ring is worn
by the new duchess of Cambridge

This brilliant blue sapphire is
estimated to be worth $400,000

But in the bustling
Sri Lankan market,

the sapphires that
Lucas discovers

are not what you might expect

This stone has

very little color in it...

Not quite colorless, but almost

Believe it or not,
this is a sapphire

Sapphires are a variety
of the mineral corundum,

which in its pure
state is colorless

Corundum crystals are made
up of aluminum and oxygen atoms

It is the second hardest
natural gemstone after diamond

But colorless corundum
is not a treasure;

its value comes
from its impurity

What gives corundum its color
is what we call trace elements

In the case of blue
sapphire, it's iron and titanium

Different impurities
absorb and reflect

different colors of light,
similar to the Hope Diamond

Take a look at the color

Would you believe
me if I told you

this was a sapphire?

This stone is purple
and it's still a sapphire

Sapphires come in yellow,
pink, and of course blue,

but one color of sapphire
has a name all its own:

ruby

I think most
people don't realize

ruby and sapphire,
they're related

They're both from
the mineral corundum

They're varieties

It's just the color distinction

that we give these
gems their famous names

Rubies' color comes
from the element chromium

Their rarity makes them
one of the most valuable gems

Sapphires and rubies show
how even Earth's imperfect recipes

can lead to some of its
most beautiful creations

Cooked by the heat and
pressure of colliding tectonic plates,

impurities can turn
a simple dull rock

into a rainbow of rare
and precious gemstones

But not all gems are
found washed loose

Emeralds are some
of the rarest gems

But hunting for them requires
patience and explosive power

Jamie Hill and Ed
Speer of North Carolina

have been mining emeralds
for more than 30 years

Almost ten percent

of all of the emeralds
found on this property

are greater than 100 carats

That means they're
that big or bigger

These are some of the biggest,
best emeralds in the world

Emeralds are formed by
the hot, mineral-rich fluids

generated when
land masses collide,

as they did about
380 million years ago

here in what is
now North Carolina

The challenge for Jamie and Ed

is that these emeralds
can be anywhere here,

still encased in the
rock where they formed

That's a nice specimen

That's where the
firepower comes in

We've got over 3,500
pounds of high explosives

It's gonna be over
10,000 tons of rock

This is gonna be a big
one, I mean, a real big one

Blowing up a lot of earth

is all in a day's work
for Ed and Jamie

But today, like most,
they come up short

The explosion didn't reveal
any obvious new emeralds

We've got several
days of hard work here

But I'm very excited

because emeralds could
be anywhere at any moment

Oh!

There's the big one

Remember that one?

Remember that one?

It's that big one you
found at the end of the day

You were about to go home

I wanted to go home, I was tired

I'll never forget that

That emerald weighs
over 1,450 carats

Making it one of the ten
largest emeralds ever found

in North America

And this is only
one of the treasures

Jamie and Ed have found

To date, they have uncovered

$9 million worth of emeralds

and have no plans
to stop looking

But if two men at one
location can uncover that many,

it begs the question:

are precious gems like diamonds
and emeralds really that rare?

It's so funny to think

about the marketing of diamonds,

making them sound incredibly
rare and incredibly valuable

And, of course,

a big, perfect
diamond is a rare object

But the typical diamond, half
a carat, one carat diamond,

they're available
by the billions,

and they have to be
because otherwise,

you wouldn't have
a jewelry market

Robert Hazen believes
that the value of gemstones

is largely a creation
by the jewelry industry,

not nature

But in some cases,

the value comes from
traditions thousands of years old

Nowhere is that more
evident than in modern Beijing

Here, despite the
onslaught of rising wealth

and luxury goods,

there is one ancient treasure
that rises above all others:

jade

In China, jade can be even
more valuable than diamonds

This jade necklace
is called "water's love"

It is made up of the
highest-quality stones,

perfect for attending galas

It will elevate the party-going
lady's status instantly

Whoever wears "water's love,"

she will be the
queen of the party

Lisa Dong sells jade pieces that
can cost upwards of $20 million

Even traditional jade bracelets,

which have been worn by
women here for thousands of years,

can easily cost
tens of thousands

When you click two
jade pieces together,

the clicking sound
represents a character trait...

A refusal to be contaminated
by evil influences

Jade bracelets are thought
to bring luck and happiness

with no end or beginning,
just like their shape

When a Chinese woman
marries, diamonds are not important

What is important is to
have a jade bracelet and ring

They embody the
ideas of Confucius:

benevolence, righteousness,
courtesy, wisdom, and trust

How can one stone
mean so much to so many?

There's no better
place to find an answer

than in the heart
of Imperial China:

The Forbidden City

Lin Xu is a specialist
in ancient jade

Westerns may believe jade

is a normal stone, but in
the eyes of us Chinese,

jade is not only
a beautiful stone

We have such a long
history of jade objects in China

From its initial use of
connecting us to the gods,

we add more functions
to it throughout the years

And now, the culture of jade

coincides with Chinese
culture and history

Over China's very long history,

jade became
increasingly connected

with the imperial ruler

Jade's association

with the emperor
developed in stages

Owning jade was
forbidden to common people

They could lose their heads
if they were caught using jade

There were strict rules

Some of the most
important pieces of jade

were the emperor's
seals, called xi

All of the 25 xi

were equally important,
tightly connected

to the emperor's
rule and law-making

This is a green jade xi for
signing important documents

that make announcement
to the entire nation

Whoever owned the xi
was to own the entire country

Ever since then, every
dynasty carried on the tradition

Dynasties fought over
the control of the xi

The English word for jade
describes what are actually

two completely different
minerals: jadeite and nephrite

In my left hand

is a mineral called jadeite

In my right hand is a
greenish mineral called nephrite

Both are, generally
speaking, referred to as jade,

but chemically, these are
two very different minerals

One way you can tell
between a jadeite and a nephrite

is to rub one against the other,

and you can see the
jadeite, being slightly harder,

can scratch the nephrite

Nephrite has the much
longer history in Chinese culture

One massive piece
of nephrite jade

that was prized above
all others by the emperor

still sits in the Forbidden City

Altogether, this sculpture
took ten years to complete

It is also the largest
jade sculpture in China

That tradition of
intricate carving

still continues in the
town of Yangzhou,

north of Shanghai

Jade is not chipped
away like marble

Historically,
pedal-powered machines

and a hard abrasive were used

to slowly grind
and shape the stone

Even today, with the
help of modern tools,

jade requires patience to slowly
reveal the beauty of the stone

Master carver Yijin Gao says

it is unlike diamond,
which is cleaved

You can't cut jade

The first step is to remove
the unnecessary parts

The second step
is grinding slowly

for the piece to take shape

The earliest uses of jade
were as primitive tools

because the toughness
and durability of the stone

allowed it to be
shaped into useful forms

Richard Vinci is a materials
scientist at Lehigh University

Mostly, we associate

toughness or being
damage-tolerant with metals

With a lot of minerals,

as soon as they start to
crack, they just come apart

Jade is a little bit different,

and it comes down to
the internal structure...

Not down at the atomic scale,
but at the micrometer scale

That's looking more promising

Maybe if we were to come
into this area over here?

This piece of jade

has all of these
little crystal fibers

that are long and skinny,

they look almost like
little noodles of spaghetti,

and they're all
packed together tightly

to make the solid crystal

In this area, the fibers
are all running this way,

but in this area, it looks like
they're running cross this way

Down here, they're
running at sort of a diagonal

So as you try to crack it,

the crack may go through
one bundle following the fibers,

but as soon as it
hits the next bundle

where the fibers are
oriented in a different direction,

it has a very difficult time,

and that gives it a fair
degree of toughness

That toughness has
led to another belief

widespread in China:

that jade protects the
person who wears it...

One reason so many
people buy jade jewelry

Chinese people normally
believe jade carries a blessing

We've all heard many stories
that a piece of jade shatters

in order to protect his master

I think it's often the case

that people associate
physical characteristics

with more moral or
mystical characteristics

So the characteristics that
we associate with that material

are coming from
its individual atoms

and their electron structure

and how those atoms are arranged

We really can't appreciate that

at the level at
which we're using it,

but we certainly
appreciate the properties

that result from it

There is another gem

with unusual
microscopic properties

that some call the Queen,

and it is mostly
found Down Under

Australia has 95% of
the world's precious opal

Black opal is the most rare

and famously
comes from one town:

Lightning Ridge

Anthony Melonas is a
fourth-generation miner

It's in my blood

I look at diamonds and emeralds

and rubies and sapphires

Well, opal's the queen

Opal is the queen
of all the gems

Melonas says the
only way to find an opal

is to careful dig away at
the Outback's clay walls

The thing about opal:

just when you think you
know what you're doing,

it will surprise you

It can form anywhere

And what you don't want
is this piece of machinery

going right through a big opal

Fortunately, in the white rock,

the colors of opal make
it relatively easy to spot

These vivid colors are
what gives the stone its value

Opal can come in many colors,

including deep blue-greens,
intense purple, or fiery red

And it has a
sparkle all its own,

again a result of its
microscopic structure

I love opals

Not only are they very flashy,
but they're also very different

from most of the other gemstones

Instead of irregular
little crystals,

they are these
perfect little spheres

An opal is made up
of tiny spheres of silica,

a mixture of silicon and oxygen

found in sand and even
ordinary window glass

The spheres are so small
that when packed together,

they can scatter
wavelengths of light,

creating flashes
of different colors

And so depending on
the size of the spheres,

you will get different
colors appearing

Certain opals will flash
mostly green or mostly red

or maybe a mixture
of these colors

Opal is not a crystal
like most other gems;

it is a collection of
billions of glassy spheres

packed together and surrounded
by a small amount of water

Just how opals form is
not completely understood

One interpretation is
that under rare conditions,

water percolated
through the ground

and dissolved silica from rock

That viscous mineral mix
filled in cracks in the Earth

and slowly solidified,
like Jell-O in a mold

Opal can form in any gap

or even fill in fossils
left by ancient life

These rare fossils
are a colorful record

of a prehistoric world

preserved in part
by a unique geology

in Australia, where
very little happened,

all evidence of an
exquisite connection

between geology,
life, and precious gems

The beauty of every gem

comes from a unique
recipe inside Earth

But can they tell
us something more?

Are there clues
held by these gems

that can solve some of
the most enduring mysteries

in the field of geology?

One of those mysteries

is when the important
process of plate tectonics began

Giant tectonic plates
pushed and pulled

by the need to release
heat deep within Earth

have shaped the
map of the continents

into what we know today

and made Earth more
geologically active

than all other known planets

But when did this
critical process begin?

When plate tectonics begins

is a huge question

Some people think it is more
than four billion years ago

Some people think it
didn't really get started

until less than a billion years

That's a huge discrepancy

So any insight we have on
how plate tectonics began

is incredibly valuable

to understanding
our dynamic planet

Steven Shirey at the
Carnegie Institution for Science

thinks these diamonds
may hold the answer, literally

So we're looking at
three rough diamonds

Rough diamonds means uncut

Shirey, a geochemist,

is investigating what others
consider bad diamonds:

ones with flaws...
Tiny bits of earth

trapped inside,
called inclusions

Here's one, here's another one

These black specs
would make this diamond

not good for the jewelry market,

so Tiffany's would not
this particular specimen

Tiffany's may not want them,

but for Shirey, these
diamonds are, in effect,

an ancient safety deposit box

preserving the
chemistry of early Earth

Diamonds are the best container
you could have for anything

When they enclose a mineral,

they become the best
time capsules we have

The first step is
getting to the flaw

After all, this
container is made

of the hardest material on Earth

What we have here is
a diamond-cutting laser

It's going to cut
from top to bottom,

and that part of the diamond
will be actually vaporized

All right, Joe, let's go ahead
and cut this baby, all right?

Here we go, ready?

When I see a diamond,
like anybody, I love its beauty

But I really love a diamond
that has a lot of flaws

Then the diamonds are polished

to clearly reveal the inclusions

Then we can get a really
good look at the inclusions,

and you can see
one, two, three, four

By breaking through the diamond

and analyzing the
chemistry of the minerals,

Shirey has found
something startling:

minerals billions of years old

that could only have
formed on the surface

But given that diamonds
form deep within the Earth,

how did that happen?

Shirey believes that the
motion of plate tectonics

carried the minerals
deep into Earth,

where the material was
encapsulated by a diamond

So that's a dead
ringer for the idea that

they're from the
surface of the Earth

But Shirey has never
found surface minerals

in a diamond older
than 3 2 billion years

And that suggests that plate
tectonics or a related process

could have begun
at about that time

We can take very tiny grains

and scale up to
very large questions

And these are the biggest
questions you can answer

about geology on the
earth, and we're doing it

with almost the smallest
specimens that humans can study

You know, it's amazing

the role that
diamonds have played

in understanding
Earth as a whole

Diamonds give us hints
about how Earth works

and how it was made

The journey of gemstones
both flawed and flawless

reveal forces of Earth's
unimaginable power

as well as the
heights of artistic

and scientific endeavor

Around the world, that
process continues today

as scientists are
finding new uses

for these ancient treasures:

lasers that employ the
clear optics of rubies,

and diamond's
thermal conductivity

used in the next generation
of quantum computing

So whether under museum
guard, for sale at Tiffany,

or in laboratories
around the world,

these treasures
prove that their value,

both aesthetic and scientific,
can indeed last forever