Carbon-Based Gems, Carbon-Based Consequences Sarah Steele
Event details
Diamonds may promise forever love, but the first synthetic ‘forever’ belonged to jet - and the story of that gem has been largely forgotten. When Victorian demand for Whitby jet outpaced supply, the race to create a synthetic led to plastic, a ‘gem’ of innovation that has directly contributed to the rise of a new geological era, the Anthropocene.
Today, lab-grown diamonds are marketed as sustainable innovation, but history warns us: synthetic gems rarely disappear when their beauty fades.
Join Sarah Steele, Director of the Ebor Jetworks and Curator of Jet at Whitby Museum, to learn more.
This event is presented by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society.
Image credit: Sarah Steele
About the speaker
Sarah Caldwell Steele, Director of the Ebor Jetworks and Curator of Jet at Whitby Museum, fell in love with Whitby jet at seven. With over 40 years of commercial lapidary experience, a geology degree and Fellowships of the Gemmological Association, she is now the leading authority on jet. She is also a PhD researcher at Durham University developing new ways to identify and classify ancient carbonaceous materials in the archaeological record.
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