[ad_1]
There is a huge treasure trove of diamonds buried under the ground. More than a quadrillion tons of diamonds – a thousand times more than a rail – announced US researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) this week
But do not expect a race to diamonds. These precious minerals are located much deeper than any drilling expedition ever reached, about 145 to 240 kilometers below the surface of the planet.
"We can not get them, but there are still many more diamonds than we had imagined before," said Ulrich Faul, a researcher at the Department of Earth Sciences, Science and Technology. Atmosphere and planetary sciences of MIT.
"This shows that the diamond may not be this exotic mineral, but, on the scale of things, relatively common."
Using seismic technology to analyze how sound waves cross the Earth, scientists have detected rocks called cranial roots, which have the shape of inverted mountains that extend from the earth's crust to the mantle. .
These are the oldest and most immobile parts of the rocks, which lie below the center of most continental tectonic plates, said MIT in a statement.
The Deep Earth Diamond Discovery Project began because scientists were intrigued by observations that sound waves were accelerating significantly through the roots of old diamonds.
Then they set up virtual stones, made from various combinations of minerals, to calculate the speed at which the sound waves would travel through them.
"Special diamond in many ways," said Faul. "One of their special properties is that the speed of sound in diamond is twice as fast as in the dominant mineral in the upper mantle rocks, olivine."
They found that the only rock type% at 2% diamond.
Scientists now believe that the ancient underground rocks of the Earth contain at least a thousand times more diamonds than expected.
Yet very few of these precious stones should arrive in jewelery stores.
Source link
