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(Credit: Bjoern Wylezich / Shutterstock)
A single grain of rock in a diamond contains a mineral never found before.
And this new substance could reveal unusual chemical reactions taking place in the depths of the mantle, the Earth's layer lying between the earth's crust and the outer core of the planet.
Scientists unearthed the mineral from a South African volcanic site known as Koffiefontein's pipe. Shiny diamonds stain the igneous and dark rock lining the pipe, and the diamonds themselves contain tiny pieces of other minerals from hundreds of kilometers below the surface of the Earth. In one of these glittering stones, scientists discovered a dark green opaque mineral that they estimated was forged 170 km underground.
They named the new mineral "goldschmidtite" in honor of renowned geochemist Victor Moritz Goldschmidt, according to the study published Sept. 1 in the journal American Mineralogist.
According to National Geographic, the entire mantle has a thickness of about 2900 km (2900 km), making it difficult to study the lower regions of the layer. The intense pressure and heat in the upper mantle transform the modest carbon deposits into sparkling diamonds; the rocks trap other mantle minerals in their structures and can be pushed to the surface of the planet by underground volcanic eruptions. By analyzing mineral inclusions in diamonds, scientists can take a look at the chemical processes that occur far below the crust.
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The authors of the study noted that for a mantle mineral, goldschmidtite had a particular chemical composition.
"Goldschmidtite contains high concentrations of niobium, potassium and lanthanum and cerium, rare earth elements, while the rest of the mantle is dominated by other elements, such as magnesium and iron," co-authored Nicole Meyer, PhD student at the University of Alberta in Canada, said in a statement. Potassium and niobium make up the bulk of the mineral, which means that the relatively rare elements have been collected and concentrated to form the unusual substance, although other neighboring elements are more abundant, she said.
"Goldschmidtite is very unusual for inclusion captured by a diamond and gives us insight into the fluid processes that affect the deep roots of continents during diamond formation," said Mantle Geochemist Graham Pearson, Co-Director of Meyer, in the press release. The mineral is now at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Meyer told Live Science in an email.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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