Ancient diamonds show a record amount of water in the ground

– It’s unclean. Researcher Tingting Gu says there is a mineral hidden in the diamond, which was formed by water.

It is already known that water can be stored underground, but we do not know how much water is there. The new diamond reveals that there may be more water, in more places, and deeper than scientists previously thought. The mineral in diamonds can contain 10 percent water, which is a standard amount.

It could be mineral water from space

It happens that sea water gets stuck in minerals and accompanies them underground, but the water of this mineral can come directly from outer space.

I would very much like to study diamonds again to understand whether the water came from the sea or asteroids that collided during the birth of the Earth, says Tingting Ju, a mineralogist.

diamond mine on lava

The diamond is likely hundreds of millions of years old and comes from the Karoy mine in Botswana. The mine is located in rocks with a volcanic rock known as kimberlite. The kimberlite comes from a volcanic eruption that occurred a long time ago. The eruption would have to be fast and rich in gas to force the diamond up from a depth of 660 kilometers with the mineral still intact. In a slow eruption, the metal was destroyed instead. 660 kilometers away is the solid lower mantle, diamonds from it are very rare. Tingting Gu was one of the few who were allowed to examine diamonds.

– We can only drill a little over 12 kilometers, so the search for diamonds is invaluable. She says it is a great privilege.

The article was published in natural earth sciences