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Diamond From 660 Kilometers Below Earth's Surface Reveals a Water-Rich Environment - ScienceAlert

Diamond From 660 Kilometers Below Earth's Surface Reveals a Water-Rich Environment - ScienceAlert

Diamond From 660 Kilometers Below Earth's Surface Reveals a Water-Rich Environment - ScienceAlert
Sep 26, 2022 56 secs

It's riddled with flaws containing traces of ringwoodite, ferropericlase, enstatite, and other minerals that suggest the diamond formed 660 kilometers (410 miles) below Earth's surface.

Moreover, they suggest that the environment in which they formed – a divide between the upper and lower mantle called the 660-kilometer discontinuity (or, more simply, the transition zone) – is rich in water.

At the high pressures at the transition zone, ringwoodite decomposes into ferropericlase, as well as another mineral called bridgmanite.

Their presence in the diamond tells a story of a journey, indicating the stone formed at depth before making its way back up to the crust.

The ringwoodite in particular had features suggesting it is hydrous in nature – a mineral that forms in the presence of water.

These clues suggest that the environment in which the diamond formed was pretty danged wet.

"Even though a local H2O enrichment was suggested for the mantle transition zone based on the previous ringwoodite finding, the ringwoodite with hydrous phases, reported here – representative of a hydrous peridotitic environment at the transition zone boundary – indicates a more broadly hydrated transition zone down to and cross the 660-kilometer discontinuity.".

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