Inside this flawed diamond is something that's never been seen before
A rare mineral from deep inside Earth's mantle has been found in an unlikely place - embedded inside a flawed diamond.
The Calcium silicate perovskite mineral, dubbed Davemaoite, has never before been seen as it originates from 660 kilometres below the surface.
The diamond was originally found decades ago in Botswana at the Orapa mine.
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The diamond holds tiny black specks of Davemaoite, which is formed at high heat and high pressure deep inside the Earth. (Aaron Celestian, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County). Nature
Oliver Tschauner, a geochemist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas studied the precious gem alongside colleagues.
Typically Davemaoite can only exist in high pressure forms but the fact it was trapped inside the diamond allowed scientists to study it in its near-purest form.
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The diamond was found the world’s largest opencast diamond mine. Nester Korolev/University of British Columbia
Their findings were published in the journal Science this week.
The research said Davemaoite contains weakly radioactive elements "including the heat-generating elements thorium and uranium, which have half-lives longer than the geologic history of Earth".
The Mantle lies between Earth's dense, super-heated core and the thin outer layer known as the crust. United States Geological Survey
Because of this, scientists think the mineral helps manage how heat moves through deep Earth.
It's believed Davemaoite makes up five to seven per cent of the Earth's mantle, which is about 2900 kilometres thick, and makes up 84 per cent of Earth's total volume.
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