According to a new study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, the massive Hope Diamond was born at hellish depths beneath Earth’s crust. It was only after that it was mined in India, acquired its cursed reputation, was passed among wealthy owners and thieves and French royals before the massive Hope Diamond came to rest in a Smithsonian exhibit.
Among the rarest diamonds are the Blue diamonds which are found on Earth. According to a recent survey, only 0.02 percent of the total 13.8 million diamonds that turned up were blue ones. These types of diamonds can form four times deeper inside the earth when compared to their colorless cousins. The report says that it may take at least 400 miles below the surface for them to be formed. That is at least twice as far underground as the International Space Station is now above us.
“We always knew there was something special about these diamonds,” said geologist Jeffrey Post, curator of the mineral collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, who was not involved with this report. The study authors make “a very compelling argument” that these diamonds formed at greater than typical depths.
The origin of blue diamonds has long been a mystery. “We knew essentially absolutely nothing about where they grow,” said geologist Evan M. Smith, a lead author of the Nature report and a research scientist at the Gemological Institute of America in New York, a nonprofit that oversees the world’s gemstone grading system.
Diamonds according to science, are crystals of carbon atoms. According to Geologists, the trace impurities along with contamination with the element boron make diamonds in blue color. A boron atom can take a place of carbon atom in the crystal structure. It cannot perfectly become a substitute of the carbon atom, but a loose boron electron absorbs red light making the diamond to appear a blue hue.
But the discovery posed more questions. Boron is found on the surface of Earth and no boron should be found within the interior which is the place for diamonds to grow.
Smith and his colleagues reviewed at least 46 blue diamonds to answer the question of where the boron originated. The study also included the one which fetched USD 25 million in 2016 that were submitted to the Gemological Institute of America. The Gemological Institute of America has access to “more stones than any of us would have access to in our lifetime,” Post said.
The place where diamonds grow are rocks as same as plants grow in soil. “When a diamond grows, sometimes it can envelop some of the surrounding material and trap it,” Smith said. The carbon crystals trap other minerals that are known as inclusions.
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