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Scientist Links Dead Matter to Formation of Diamonds
By Jeff Miller Posted: 06/27/05 15:48
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(Rapaport...June 27, 2005) In a new research report for Geology magazine, scientists theorize that the diamonds formed in the deepest earth could be the remains of sea creatures, and show the earth recycles remains at much deeper levels than previously thought.

It was assumed that diamonds came from the bottom of earth's thick continental crust, which formed primordial carbon during the earth's formation. But now pressure-revealing minerals within some diamonds from Jagersfontein in South Africa indicate that carbon was pressed into existence from graphite 300 miles deep into the earth the report finds.

But the same carbon-12 isotope found in living matter was found in diamonds as well, the report said. Findings suggest that the carbon in the diamonds was from recycled remains of sea creatures that eventually made their way into the earths crust by plate tectonics.

Diamond researcher Ralf Tappert of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, published the report in July's issue of Geology.

It is possible however for carbon-12 to be concentrated into rocks and then into diamonds, without the intervention of living things, earth scientist Steven Shirey of the Carnegie Institution of Washington told Discovery Channel News.
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