by KATHRYN DOYLE
LANDSAT image of the Popigai Crater in Siberia, Russia NASA
Russia recently revealed a secret trove of “trillions of carats” of diamonds, under wraps since the ’70s. The crater full of diamonds was created, apparently, 35 million years ago when an asteroid crashed into Siberia. An asteroid 3 to 5 miles across made a 63-mile-wide dent in the Earth, with layers of fine-grain diamonds buried under the surface. Despite the diamonds’ incredible purported value, Russia has not extracted them because the area is too remote and inaccessible, instead (at least according to the Russian government) choosing to keep the area secret for decades.
What Kind of Diamonds are They?
Unless your mate has peculiar taste, you won’t be proposing marriage with one of these. “You’re not going to be making rings out of the stuff,” George Harlow, curator of minerals and gems at the American Museum of Natural History, tells PM. The impact at Popigai created a mixture of traditional, gem-quality cubic diamonds and “lonsdaleite,” tiny yellow-brown crystals with atoms arranged in hexagons. They have the density, hardness, and brightness of the diamonds we know but not much else. When hikers come across these minerals, Harlow says, “people know they’re odd but not that they are diamonds.”
How Does an Asteroid Make Diamonds?
“Those asteroids do all kinds of damage,” says Harlow. “It’s like setting off a nuclear bomb, but bigger.” He says that any space rock hitting Earth since life has existed would have created some diamonds, because the high-pressure impact can wreak havoc with the area’s geology, turning quartz into siderite, making metals if the searing-hot meteorite strikes an ore, and melting sand into glass.
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