How Diamonds Are Formed? The Science Behind the Sparkle!

Transcript

00:00to understand why diamonds are so expensive it helps to know how they're formed diamonds are

00:05made almost entirely of carbon atoms which aren't particularly rare carbon is found all throughout

00:11the earth's crust and is also the basic building block of life in other words it's pretty easy to

00:16get a hold of diamonds however are another story they form deep within the earth where there is

00:22intense heat and pressure specifically diamonds need at least 4.5 gigapascals of pressure to put

00:29that number into context if you were standing on the surface of the earth the pressure would be

00:33about 1.15 gigapascals at sea level 0.65 gigapascals at the top of mount everest and 0.27 gigapascals at

00:43the bottom of the mariana trench so we're talking serious pressure here in addition to pressure

00:50diamonds also require a temperature of at least 1000 degrees celsius for some perspective the hottest

00:56air temperature ever recorded was just shy of 14 000 degrees fahrenheit or about 7750 degrees celsius

01:05so while the pressure and temperatures required to make diamonds might seem like they could be found

01:10in the center of the earth it's actually too hot there to make them the only places we know of where

01:16the conditions necessary to make diamonds occur are deep inside the earth but not too deep and in places

01:22where there is a lot of carbon available so far the only places we know of that meet these conditions

01:28are only a few spots on the earth and mining diamonds from these places is incredibly difficult

01:34because of both the harsh conditions and the fact that these spots are rare the largest producer of

01:40rough diamonds by value is you guessed it africa but diamonds have also been found in australia

01:46the russian arctic canada and even the united states