A quadrillion tons of diamonds may be under the surface of the Earth, according to a study

According to a study conducted by an international team of scientists and published on Monday in the journal Geochemistry Geophysics, Geosystems there could be a quadrillion tons of diamonds below the surface of the Earth. According to the study, the deposits are located in "cratonic roots" located between 90 and 150 miles below the surface of the Earth (much farther than the boreholes)

"This shows that the diamond does not" is not perhaps this exotic mineral, but on the scale of things [geological] it is relatively common, "said Ulrich Faul, co-author of the study and researcher at the Department of Science Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary MIT News from MIT . "We can not reach them, but there are many more diamonds than we had ever thought of before."

But what is a "cratonic root"? MIT News describes the cratons as "the oldest and most immobile rock sections in the center of most continental tectonic plates." These stable pieces of the earth's crust have the shape of "inverted mountains". Cratons are known as their "roots" and can reach all the way to the Earth's mantle. It is here that the authors of the study believe that diamonds are.

But if they are more than 100 miles below the surface of the Earth, how did the scientists find them? The answer comes from seismic data – or sound waves recorded from seismic activities such as earthquakes and tsunamis.

Seismic data can be used to measure the Earth because the speed of sound waves varies depending on the temperature, composition of the earth they are passing through.

Looking at the seismic data, the scientists realized that there was a problem – the sound waves were moving through the cratonic roots "faster than we thought we could reproduce with reasonable assumptions about what exist".

Thus, using 3D modeling to create virtual rocks, scientists sought to understand which substances could form the roots of cratons, allowing the sound to pass through this speed. Diamonds correspond to the bill, and to match the speed of sound traveling through the roots, scientists have estimated that the roots should be made of 1 to 2% diamond (in addition to the peridotite and the gold). eclogist)

. With the number of known craton roots, scientists arrived at their quadrillion tonne estimate – 1000 times more than expected, according to CNN.

Diamonds are created in high temperature and high pressure scenarios and make their way to the surface

The researchers involved came from the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of California at Berkeley, the Polytechnic School, the Institute of Globe Physics of Paris, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Harvard University, the University of Science and of China Technology, Bayreuth University, Melbourne University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University College London.