SCIENCE

Earth is 'filled with a quadrillion tons of diamonds': Study

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Reuters

News agency

Wednesday, July 18, 2018, 4:02 PM - A new study from MIT suggests the interior of Earth is "filled with a quadrillion tons of diamonds."

Scientists estimate the diamonds are more than 100 miles below the surface, beneath the continental tectonic plates. They are too deep for humans to mine.

The study estimates 1-2 percent of the cratonic roots may be filled with diamonds.

A statement from MIT News says scientists came to this conclusion while they were trying to "construct an image of what the earth's interior might look like."

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Researchers created virtual rock models to test what material would allow sound waves to travel that quickly through the cratonic roots. The result was diamonds.

Scientists came up with an estimate of around a quadrillion tons of diamonds by taking into account the total volume of cratonic roots scattered inside Earth.

The findings would mean diamonds are about 1,000 times more common that previously thought.

"This shows that diamond is not perhaps this exotic mineral, but on the [geological] scale of things, it's relatively common," Ulrich Faul, a research scientist in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences who contributed to the story told Business Insider.

"We can't get at them, but still, there is much more diamond there than we have ever thought before."