Hold on to your engagement rings . Diamonds , according to anindustry report , are falling off a supplying cliff in 2018 . As existing diamond mines are depleted even as worldwide requirement increase — thanks , especially to a newly rich Asia — three months ’ salarymight soon buy you a much punier rock .
But appear at the big picture : A diamond , after all , is just carbon arranged in a pretty vitreous silica , and carbon is the 4th most abundant component in the existence . May we suggest a few other places to calculate for diamonds in this cosmos ?
Under the ice in Antarctica
Named after theSouth African Ithiel Town Kimberlythat inspired a 19th hundred rhombus rush , kimberlite is a type of rock famous for containing adamant . It initially forms deep in the earthly concern , where the eminent heat and extraordinary pressure are also perfect for forming baseball field . Geologists recently reportedvast kimberlite deposits in Antarctica ’s Prince Charles Mountains . They have n’t dug up any diamonds yet , but it ’s very likely the gem are there , given the kimberlite .
away from water ice over two miles buddy-buddy and freezing temperatures , though , the prospective Antarctica diamonds are also protected by 1991 agreement that prohibits mining on the continent . On second intellection , maybe just manoeuver to the warmer temperature of Siberia , rather .
In an once-secret crater in Siberia
Last year , the Russiansrevealed the existenceof a 35 - million - class - former , 62 - mile encompassing crater full of diamonds in eastern Siberia . The crash that carved out the the crater , know as the Popigai Astroblem , had also released enough vigour to bend some of the black lead into superhard baseball diamond . Because these “ impact baseball diamond ” were spring by a different procedure than most , Popigai ’s diamonds are especially superhard and most suited for industrial utilization . According to the director of the Novosibirsk Institute of Geology and Mineralogy , the deposit of superhard diamond is bigger than all of the world ’s known reserves by a factor of ten . Now they just have to mine them .
The massive diamond field was first discovered in the 1970s , apparently , but the Soviets kept it secret because they were already busy with Mirny , thelargest diamond mine in the world .
On Saturn and Jupiter, where it could be raining diamonds
diamond in the sky ? How about adamant raining down from foreign ambience . consort to calculation by two worldwide scientist , the volatile gamy - pressure skies of Jupiter and Saturn are just right for creatingdiamond rainwater .
https://gizmodo.com/its-literally-raining-diamonds-on-saturn-and-jupiter-1445016533
It ’s a matter of chemistry . Lightning tears apart methane particle , releasing carbon as soot . As the soot float down , hotness and pressure in the atmosphere increases , squeeze the soot first into plumbago and then into diamond . When those diamonds at last get through the planet ’ burden , it ’s so hot they melt . The whole unconscious process probably take a thousand year . Any spot where diamond are actively forming and melting is really no place for carbon - base lifeforms like us . But what a spate to suppose .
On a planet made of solid diamond
First , astronomers reveal a planet withland masses made of baseball field ; then they found anentire planet made of diamond . The Jupiter - sized planet is mostly carbon and so dense — denser than any other known planet — that scientist intend the carbon must have become adamant . It ’s 20 time as dense as Jupiter . It is , however , 4,ooo light year away .
https://gizmodo.com/scientists-say-theres-a-planet-lined-with-diamonds-5711607
In a lab
synthetical diamond under a read electron microcscope . Ludvig14 / Wikimedia Commons
Okay , we ’re amount back down to ground for this one . While the phrase diamonds are a girlfriend ’s right friend is an exercise of stunningly successful mass marketing Irish bull , the gem does have especial properties that make it specially useful for cutting and as an electrical insulator.90 % of industrial - score diamondsare really synthetic . Synthetic diamonds are easier to get in magnanimous quantities , and their properties can be tailored to a specific use .
When it comes to jewelry , the human heart ca n’t recount the difference between mined and synthetical diamonds , either . Of course , this greatly concerns the diamond industry , and De Beers has developed political machine todistinguish between the two . While synthetic diamond have been around for decades , only2 % of them end up in jewelry .
A lab , I opine , does n’t sound too romantic . Then again , neither does a mine . As long as it ’s economically viable — as long as we keep suffering from the psychotic belief that C crystals represent love must be unearthed from the basis — we’ll deep digging monolithic holes in the ground .
But perhaps especially grown and utterly unique synthetic diamonds , custom - made for your loved one in a lab specifically designed for the intention , could take on their own import . you could even turnashes from cremationinto a synthetic diamond . The C cycle is not without its own poetry .
rhombus photo via123dartist / Shutterstock . Antarctica exposure viaVolodymyr Goinyk / Shutterstock
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