| Herkimer Diamonds |
| Herkimer diamonds are not real diamonds. They're composed differently and they have a softer hardess (seven on the Moh's scale rather than a diamond's ten). If you hit a Herkimer diamond with a three-lb sledgehammer, it will shatter into a million pieces. Some people have learned this the hard way. As well as not being real diamonds, Herkimer diamonds are also not as valuable (awww...). They are measured in value by their size, clearness (no rock fragments in it), and their perfection in shape (not just a half of a diamond, etc). They're valued (in dollars) from $0 to $200. |
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| Herkimer Diamonds are quartz crystals with 18 sides and 2 points. The diamonds are found only in Herkimer County. The more attractive crystals are used as jewlery and sometimes gem trees. These doubly-terminated crystals are 400 million years old and are found in dolomite. The picture below shows the rubble that visitors to the mine first see. This was caused by people hired to drill and blow up the dolomite with dynamite to find diamonds (these people are paid for the diamonds they find). |
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| Lastly, we explain how these Herkimer diamonds are formed. The rock they're found in, the Little Falls Dolomite, was formed in a warm, shallow, salt sea in the Precambrian rock now in the Adirondacks. Sediments accumulated, and the rock became compacted due to the weight of the thousands of meters of additional sediment. While still in this sea, magnesium was added to the calcite of the limestone to form the dolomite and produce the "vugs" in which the Herkimer diamonds are found. |