Message From The Core Of The Earth Sent To Humans In The Form Of Diamonds

A recently conducted study on the leftover pieces of diamonds, formed while polishing large diamonds, with the help of microscopy and laser beams, revealed that rare diamonds are formed in the core of the Earth. It is in the mantle region to be specific, at round 200 to 500 miles of depth from the Earth's surface. This challenges the earlier beliefs that diamonds are formed at the depth of 93 to 124 miles.

Evan Smith, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Gemological Institute of America, Carlsbad, California, studied the leftover imperfection and pieces formed by polishing of rare type IIa diamonds. This particular type of diamond is extremely rare and precious and includes famous diamonds such as Constellation, Cullinan, Koh-i-Noor and Lesedi La Rona. He did an extensive analysis to study about the formation of these diamonds by studying the nature and type of impurities and imperfections present in them.

The results obtained demonstrated that the diamonds were formed under extreme pressure and indicated the presence of iron, nickel enveloped in liquid methane pockets. This indicates that these diamonds were formed at much greater depths in the core of the Earth. The results were further confirmed by studying 53 more diamond samples, which also gave similar results.

According to Evan Smith, "That's unusual. This is the first time I've seen methane around an inclusion," and he mentioned that the current study has two significant findings. "One, they tell us that these large, exceptional-quality diamonds originate from extreme depths in the Earth." He further added that the second important finding is that diamonds are formed in oxygen-deprived patches of liquid metal in the Earth's mantle at the core of the Earth, which shows that the Earth's mantle is not a uniform stew of oxygen-rich rocks, NPR reported.

The findings were published in the journal Science and attracted a lot of attention from geologists. Kanani Lee, Mineral Physicist at Yale University, said that, "It further complicates things, but it makes us have to think more deeply about what's going on in the planet because ultimately this does affect what we see up on the surface."