An area at Wanching village in Mon district in Nagaland along Myanmar border may have deposits of diamond, triggering a glittering surprise.
A video showing hundreds of villagers digging a small hill in the village to unearth “diamond” has gone viral on Thursday. The villagers have reportedly dug out diamond-like stones from the hill.
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According to sources in Mon, the villagers are camping in the area and trying to dig out the precious metal.
However, the quantity and quality of the stones found in the area could not be confirmed immediately.
“Reports apparently of #Diamond found in #Wanching village #Mon district #Nagaland,” director general (prisons and jails) of Nagaland police Rupin Sharma, who was also the director-general of the state police, tweeted on Thursday.
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Mon deputy commissioner Thavaseelan K. told this correspondent over the phone that some stones have been found in the village area. He said it was not known whether these stones are diamond or any other metal.
He said the Nagaland geology and mining department is sending a team to study the stones.
“It can be confirmed whether these stones are diamond or any other crystal metal only after the team finds out what exactly they are,” he added.
According to an Indo-German study published in the journal Current Science, “ophiolite” rocks of Nagaland, which is a part of the Indo-Myanmar ranges, may potentially hold “micro diamonds” – diamonds of small size, less than one millimeter.
Indications for the occurrence of “micro diamonds” has come from their discovery of the presence of a manganese-bearing mineral called “manganilmenite” in the ophiolite rocks they studied in the Pokphur area of Nagaland, the authors – Bibhuranjan Nayak of the CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology in Bhubaneswar, and Franz Michael Meyer of Aachen University in Germany said.