Problem is getting to them. They are buried 100 miles down underneath the center of the tectonic plates.
'Quadrillion' tons of diamonds discovered deep below Earth's surface | Fox News
A team of scientists made an enormous discovery when they recently uncovered a "quadrillion" tons of diamonds buried more than 100 miles below Earth's surface, according to a new study.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard, the Carnegie Institution of Washington and several other universities used seismic devices to measure the speed of sound waves traveling through the Earth's crust.
"Sound waves move at various speeds through the Earth, depending on the temperature, density, and composition of the rocks through which they travel," MIT explained in a news release. "Scientists have used this relationship between seismic velocity and rock composition to estimate the types of rocks that make up the Earth’s crust and parts of the upper mantle, also known as the lithosphere."
The scientists noticed a sudden spike in seismic speeds toward the bottom of 200-mile cratons, or sections of rocks found "beneath the center of most continental tectonic plates." In order to find out what was causing the sound waves to speed up, the researchers conducted several tests on various rocks and minerals.
"Only one type of rock produced the same velocities as what the seismologists measured: one that contains 1 to 2 percent diamond," the scientists explained in the study.
'Quadrillion' tons of diamonds discovered deep below Earth's surface | Fox News