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Shown are polished colored diamonds from the Argyle Diamond Deposit. The now-closed mine in Western Australia was the source of 90% of the world’s pink diamonds.
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Pink diamonds are extremely rare and coveted. Now-closed mines in Australia are the source for 90% of his colored gemstones. The finest polished pink specimens are tens of millions of dollars. But discoveries in the same area could help uncover new deposits of the gemstone, researchers say.
Scientists studying the Argyle diamond deposit in Western Australia, where the mine was located, have determined the geology necessary for the formation of pink diamonds and other colored varieties, according to research published Tuesday in the journal He said that he now has a better understanding of the academic conditions. nature communications.
Using lasers to analyze minerals and rocks extracted from the Argyle deposit, researchers found that this pink diamond-rich area was formed about 1.3 billion years ago during the breakup of an ancient supercontinent called Nuna. I discovered that it was done.
“The continent that became Australia did not break up, but the area where Argyle is located was stretched, including along the scar, creating gaps in the Earth’s crust that allowed magma to bubble up to the surface, creating pink diamonds.” said study lead author Dr. Hugo Orieruk, a research fellow at Curtin University’s John de Laser Center in Perth, Australia, in a news release.
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The Argyle Diamond Mine is located in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia’s far north-east.
Most diamond deposits are found in the central regions of ancient continents, within volcanic rocks that rapidly transported diamonds from deep within the Earth’s interior to the surface.
But for a diamond to rotate pink or red, they are exposed to strong forces from colliding plates that require the crystal lattice to twist or bend.largely brown diamond is also formed in this way.
In Argyle, this process occurred about 1.8 billion years ago when Western and Northern Australia collided, turning once colorless diamonds hundreds of miles beneath the Earth’s crust pink.
But how did these colored diamonds reach the surface? The researchers believe that the Argyll deposits are 1.3 billion years old, where an ancient supercontinent known as Nuna broke into fragments. I discovered that it was from an era.
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Pink diamonds from the Argyle Diamond Mine were formed when an ancient supercontinent was breaking into pieces, according to new research.
Supercontinents form when several continents come together to form a single landmass and have appeared several times during Earth’s geological history.
“By using a laser beam smaller than the width of a human hair on rocks provided by Rio Tinto (the company that owned the mine), we found that Argyle was 1.3 billion years old. “This means it is 100 million years older than previously thought, and it was likely formed as a result of the breakup of an ancient supercontinent,” Orieruk said.
The authors proposed that Nuna’s breakup may have reopened an old boundary left by colliding continents, allowing diamond-bearing rocks to pass through the region and form large diamond deposits.
According to the study, this sequence of events suggests that the ancient continental junction could be important for finding pink diamonds and could lead to exploration of other deposits.
“Most diamond deposits are found in the centers of ancient continents because their host volcanoes tend to be exposed at the surface, making them easier for explorers to discover,” Orieruk said. Told.
“Mount Argyle sits at the suture of two of these ancient continents, the edges of which are often covered with sand and soil, and similar pink diamond-producing volcanoes are still being discovered, including in Australia. It may not have been done.”