A tiny sample of goldschmidtite found inside a diamond. The newly discovered mineral has high concentrations of elements seldom found in Earth’s mantle. Photo courtesy of Nicole Meyer, University of Alberta.

A PhD student at the University of Alberta discovered a new mineral inside a diamond recovered from a mine in South Africa.

The mineral is named goldschmidtite in honour of Victor Moritz Goldschmidt, the founder of modern geochemistry. According to Nicole Meyer, the graduate student in the Diamond Exploration Research and Training School that discovered the rock, it has an unusual chemical signature for a mineral from Earth’s mantle.