DIAMONDS

They're probably not your best friend but, personally, I've no problem making thier acquaintance...


I am a recent graduate of Geology and admittedly I was surprised at how interesting I found diamonds to be. I'll be honest with you, and you may very well know this already; diamonds aren't 'rare' to mean there aren't many - Yes, their surficial occurance is discrete and limited but where they have survived the treacherous journey to the (near)surface, they are aplenty!


4 ways diamond occurs in nature
1. INSIDE EARTH'S MANTLE: Diamaonds are formed deep beneath the earth's surface. When conditions are right, volcanic activites transport the diamonds to the surface.
2. SUBDUCTION ZONE: When tectonic plates containing carbon deposits collide, diamonds are formed in the subduction zone.
3. ASTEROID IMPACT: The impact of an asteroid strike causes extreme pressure and temperature which turns carbon in the environment into diamonds
4. METEORITE FALL: Space meteorites containing diamonds deposit their contents when they hit the Earth's surface

The 4 C's, as they're known in industry: Colour, Cut, Clarity and Carat, are not what sparked my interest, but rather the utterly impossible conditions necessary for the formation of this gem. And so, for my project, I thought to celebrate the diamond not for its glitz and worth, but as a natural marvel, where each individual gem has an average age of between 1.5 and 3 billion years old! Illustrated above are 4 ways diamond can occur naturally, and below are 2 ways diamond can be synthetically created in a lab.


2 ways to synthetically create diamond in a lab
1. HIGH PRESSURE, HIGH TEMPERATURE: A seed diamond is placed in a capsule with graphite and a catalytic alloy solution. Under high pressure and temeprature, carbon molecules from the graphite are deposited onto the seed crystal to form diamond.
2. CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION: A seed diamond is placed inside a vacuum chamber filled with gaseous methane and hydrogen. Next, an energy source e.g. a microwave beam, activates a plasma cloud which deposits carbon atoms onto the seed crystal as diamond.

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Coded by Romana Stephenson



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