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Australian Mining reported that geologists have discovered a new type of diamond in frozen lava in Russia. The gems did not form under usual conditions — in fact, they formed under conditions very similar to those under which synthetic diamonds are created.
Australian Mining reported that geologists have discovered a new type of diamond in frozen lava in Russia. The gems did not form under usual conditions — in fact, they formed under conditions very similar to those under which synthetic diamonds are created.
As quoted in the market news:
According to geologists from the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, the Kamchatka Institute for Volcano Studies and Seismology and the Komi Republic Institute of Geology, the crystals were not formed under magmatic melt conditions, but instead through school crystallisation caused by volcanic hydrocarbon gases stimulated by the shock of electrical discharges in thunderstorms.
This is incredibly similar to how synthetic diamonds are created.
The synthetic diamond process was first patented in 1964, and involves producing diamonds from gas using strong electric discharges.
The new diamonds have been dubbed Tolbachik diamonds.
Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science said in a statement:
The diamonds seemed unusual to the geologist, under the microscope they looked much more like synthetic diamonds.
But those were natural diamonds that differed from all previously known kinds of diamonds in terms of the majority of their mineral and geo-chemical characteristics – from combustion temperature to the trace component composition.