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Diamonds
were not always diamonds. Diamonds come from deep
within the earth and how they got there and into our
jewelry is a great tale. Billions of years ago,
sources of carbon were buried in the earth. Over
time, this material sank deeper and deeper into the
earth. And over billions of years, with the
pressure from the earth above and the heat from the
Earth’s core, transformed it into a diamond. Diamonds
may be the oldest thing you will every own being that it
takes Mother Nature about 3 billion years to create one.
Getting the diamonds closer to the Earth’s surface is
the hard part. One way is by tectonic plate movement.
When one plate slides over another or collides, they
come closer to the surface creating mountains like the
Himalayas, Alp and Andes exposing the layers of earth,
but this method is very rare. A more common way diamonds
make it to the surface is through volcanic activity.
Diamonds trapped below the Earth’s crust travel with the
liquid magma where it reaches an exit through a volcano.
Not all diamonds reach the surface during a volcanic
eruption. Some get trapped within small veins of
magma inside the volcano. Once closer to the surface,
the diamonds can be mined. |
