大学英语听力题

More Precious Than the Diamond

People have long known the saying " are a girl's best friend." But this may be changing. There's a new on the gem market, tanzanite, and it is giving diamonds some serious .

Tanzanite was one of a number of gems discovered in East Africa in the 1960s. The new colors and changed the gem market. But the real gem among these stones was tanzanite, in 1967 in Tanzania.

The stone was named its country of origin by New York's Tiffany and Co., which it to the world. It draws one's attention quickly with its colors--blue, purple or bronze, depending on the direction it is from.

More important for its value, though, is its rarity. Tanzanite has been found in only one small area, near Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania. And its will probably be fully mined in the next two decades.

As one mining official it, "It should never have really in the first place. It did occur. And only this one deposit on this entire that is known... makes it more than a thousand times than diamonds. And certainly within the next 15 to 20 years, there will be no more tanzanite to be mined."

The current value of the tanzanite market, at U.S.$10 billion, is to that of diamonds. And so another saying "Diamonds are forever" may some of its meaning. (237 words)

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