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There is a bunch of bling buried in the Earth.
More than a quadrillion tons of diamonds to be exact – or a thousand times more than a trillion – US researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported this week.
But do not expect a diamond rush. These precious natural minerals are located much further than any drilling expedition ever reached, at about 145 to 240 kilometers below the surface of our planet. There are many more diamonds out there than we had ever thought before, "said Ulrich Faul, a researcher at the Department of Earth Sciences, Atmosphere and Planets at MIT.
"This shows that the diamond may not be this exotic mineral, but on the scale of things, it is relatively common."
Researchers discovered treasures in rocks using seismic technology to analyze how sound waves cross the Earth. Cratonic roots, which are shaped like inverted mountains that extend across the earth's crust and into the mantle.
These are "the oldest and most immobile rock parts that are at the center of most continental tectonic plates". A Statement
The Deep Earth Diamond Discovery Project began because scientists were surprised by the observations that sound waves would accelerate considerably by passing through the roots of ancient cratons
. minerals, to calculate how fast the sound waves would travel through them.
Read also: The fifth largest diamond in the world discovered in Lesotho
"Diam In many ways it is special," said Faul.
"L & # One of its peculiar properties is that the speed of sound in diamond is twice as fast as in the dominant mineral of the upper mantle rocks, olivine. "
They found that the only type of rock they detected in the craton contain one to two percent of diamonds.
Scientists now believe that the ancient underground rocks of the Earth contain at least 1000 times more diamonds than expected.
Yet, very few of these stones should make them
Diamonds are made from carbon and form under high pressure and at extreme temperatures deep within the Earth.
They emerge near the surface only by volcanic eruptions that occurrarely – on the order of a few tens of millions of years.
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