Diamonds are as mysterious as they are beautiful , but a new study hopes to net up any linger closed book about how these precious gems are formed deeply within our major planet . Publishing their piece of work inScience Advances , researchers believe that diamonds may be the intersection of complex processes take place 200 kilometers ( 124 miles ) below the seafloor and have mimicked these processes in their lab to prove it .
The theory go for that when parts of the slabs of seafloor ( or oceanic plate ) rapidly glide under the continental crustal plate – a process called subduction – deposit on the seafloor drop hundreds of kilometers into the Earth ’s crust , where high temperature and intense pressure at 40,000 times that of atmospherical pressure ultimately deepen the minerals into small crystal . These then melt in the ancient mantle at temperature of more than 800 ° C ( 1,500 ° F ) .
These little carbon - fixed stones admixture with a volcanic magma called kimberlite and spout back onto the Earth ’s surface as baseball diamond . fluid trapped at heart of diamonds have gamy tightness of saline thought to fall from deep subduction zones , which hint that this outgrowth may very well have been occurring for billions of year .
" There was a theory that the salt trapped inside diamonds came from nautical seawater , but could n’t be test , " said star author Michael Forster in astatement . " Our enquiry showed that they came from marine sediment . "
Sounds pretty sorcerous , does n’t it ?
To put their hypothesis to the test , the scientists recreated these extreme weather condition in the lab where they plopped marine sediment in a vessel with a common rock called peridotite . Here , they sham the chemical reaction between the two by cranking up the insistency and heat and giving them clip to react with one another .
" We present that the mental process that lead to diamond increment are driven by the recycling of pelagic sediments in subduction zones , " say Forster . " The products of our experiments also resulted in the organisation of minerals that are necessary ingredients for the formation of kimberlite magmas , which ecstasy diamonds to the Earth ’s Earth’s surface . "
But these are n’t the shining diamonds found on your nan ’s engagement ring . diamond formed through this physical process are likely those known as cloudy , less suitable sinewy diamond which have diligence in applied science and engineering .
