Australian Miners Find 12.76-Carat Pink Diamond

A mining company has unearthed and yesterday began cutting the largest pink diamond ever found in Australia. It should take about 10 days to cut the 12.76-carat diamond, which has been dubbed the Argyle Pink Jubilee, the BBC reports. Once that's done, the bauble will go on a tour around the world, with showings in New York, Hong Kong, and elsewhere, before eventually going up for auction later this year.

Like 90% of the world's pink diamonds, the Jubilee hails from Rio Tinto's Argyle mine in Western Australia. "It has taken 26 years of Argyle production to unearth this stone, and we may never see one like this again," a Rio spokesman said. But the stone isn't the most impressive of all time; in 2010 a 24.78-carat "fancy intense pink" diamond sold for a record-setting $46 million. (More pink diamond stories.)