Russian scientists have found the oldest diamond in the world

The publication of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Science in Siberia” reported that Russian scientists with colleagues from other countries studied a small diamond found in Yakutia in the rocks of the Udachnaya kimberlite pipe, about 3.6 billion years old. Reported. That the results of the study were published in the journal Minerals.

“The diamond we discovered is apparently the oldest one studied to date. The age of the sulfide inclusion syngenetic to this diamond is estimated at approximately 3.6 billion years. According to our results, it was captured by growing olivine at sufficiently high temperatures – more than 1400 ℃ and pressures of more than 5.5 GPa. This corresponds to depths of about 180 kilometers,” Academician Nikolai Pokhilenko, scientific director of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, quotes the publication of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Speaking about the scientific significance of the find, he noted that it previously confirmed only theoretical assumptions about the time and parameters of the formation of the lower horizons of the lithosphere and the period when the very first diamonds on the planet appeared in them.

Also in the message of the scientific publication it is mentioned that during the study

scientists were able to prove that the conditions for the formation of diamonds in that era were significantly different from the characteristics of later processes for the formation of the bulk of currently mined diamonds.