Brazil Has Found Diamonds Older than the Moon

Brazil has found diamonds whose age is about 4.5 billion years. Thus, they can be older than the Moon. These precious minerals are located deeply in the ground, reports atvbrics.com correspondent with the reference to eadaily.com.

Diamonds rose to the Earth surface after a volcanic eruption in Brazil. An international group of scientists has measured isotopes (various atomic forms) of helium in stones in order to find the deposit where they have been staying for all this time.

Scientists hope that the found diamonds will tell about the historical evolution of the planet soon after its formation. Back then, geological activity was so intensive that practically nothing remained of the initial Earth structure. However, scientists assume that somewhere between crust and core of the Earth there is apiece of mantle which has remained relatively untouched.

For instance, in the 1980^th, researchers found in some basaltic lavas a higher helium-3/helium-4 isotope ratio. The same ratio is characteristic of the early meteorites crashing into Earth. It means that lava goes out of the deposit, which has not been changing for one billion years.

"Such pattern was observed in Oceanic Island Basalts, ultimately the lava coming to the surface from the depth and forming such islands as Hawaii and Iceland", reported the Head of the Research Suzette Timmerman from the Australian National University.

To obtain more information on the piece of mantle from which the lava came, scientists have analyzed helium isotope ratio in diamonds formed at the depth between 150 and 230 km below the Earth crust. According to researchers, diamonds are the "ideal time capsule", as this is the firmest and less destructible of all known natural substances.

Researchers extracted gaseous helium from 23 diamonds from the Juina Area in Brazil. The characteristic isotopic composition has shown that they come from a very ancient deposit and most likely appeared before the Moon formation.

Scientists found out that diamonds come from an area situated at the depth between 410 and 660 km below ground surface. It means that the deposit extant since the beginning of the existence of our planet should be situated in that area, or below it.

Scientists will present their observations at the Goldschmidt International Geochemistry Conference in Barcelona at the end of August.