Gemological Science International (GSI) is urging extra diligence after receiving a lab-grown diamond bearing a treatment generally only found in natural stones.
“Diamond-growing technology continues to improve and growers are trying to mimic natural diamonds in every possible way,” GSI chief information officer Nick DelRe said Monday 23 February.
The organization’s Mumbai lab identified a synthetic stone that had been drilled into and given an inclusion using High Pressure-High Temperature (HPHT), which was then acid-bleached out.
The remnants of the inclusion strongly resembled laser-drill treatment, which is generally used to remove black inclusions from natural stones to enhance their appearance, but is highly unusual for lab-grown stones, GSI explained. The lab stressed that there was a common misconception in the industry that a diamond can be identified as natural or lab-grown based on inclusions. In this case, an examination that was not thorough could have led to the conclusion that the diamond was natural, because it contained a laser-drill channel.
