Research Shows Another Reason To Stop Buying Diamonds

Researchers have found proof that diamonds were formed (and are probably still forming) below the surface of the ocean's floor. In a laboratory environment, these researchers conducted a series of high-pressure experiments with marine sediment samples and a peridotite rock. Once they got pressure and temperatures high enough, salts began to form – and with them, evidence of diamond inclusions and deep-sea ancient world diamond formation.

Granted, we're still not going to see piles of diamonds popping up now that we know a bit more about their origin. We're still going to see diamond mining around the world, and the still-pervasive engagement ring campaign of circa 1938 De Beers rages on. They're (apparently) no longer hoarding diamonds the way they once did, but the price of diamonds remains high – well and away higher than prices before the big sell-off starting in the year 2000.

Sure, diamonds still have intrinsic value – just as much as any other thing. If I'm willing to pay X dollars for a candy bar, that candy bar is (probably) worth at least X dollars (at least to the person doing the buying). But when you've got a planet made of chocolate, that one candy bar doesn't seem quite so rare.*

That, and the handful of reasons we've written about over the past decade or so. Like the one about that massive diamond cache that's probably around 100 miles below the surface of the Earth. All we need to do is dig deeper.

Also consider the alien diamonds that hit Earth in meteorites – because other planets in our universe are *made largely of diamond. Like that Earth-sized diamond you might remember from back in 2014.

To learn more about the saline fluid inclusions in diamonds mentioned above, see the research paper "Melting of sediments in the deep mantle produces saline fluid inclusions in diamonds". This paper was authored by Michael W. Förster, Stephen F. Foley, Horst R. Marschall, Olivier Alard, and Stephan Buhre. This paper can be found with DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aau2620 and is published in Vol. 5, no. 5 of Science Advances from the 29th of May 2019.