NEWSLINK: Russia reveals shiny state secret: It’s awash in diamonds; Trillions of carats’ lie below a 35-million-year-old, 62-mile diameter asteroid crater in eastern Siberia known as Popigai Astroblem. The Russians have known about the site since the 1970s.
Russia reveals shiny state secret: It’s awash in diamonds; Trillions of carats’ lie below a 35-million-year-old, 62-mile diameter asteroid crater in eastern Siberia known as Popigai Astroblem. The Russians have known about the site since the 1970s. – Christian Science Monitor – September 17, 2012 – By Fred Weir, Correspondent – JRL 2012-165
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Russia is claiming that a vast diamond field containing “trillions of carats” was discovered in the 1970s by the Soviet Union, beneath a 35-million-year-old, 62-mile diameter asteroid crater in eastern Siberia known as Popigai Astroblem.
Russian scientists tabbed to discuss the find with Russian journalists claim that the gems, said to be plentiful enough to supply global markets for another 3,000 years, are twice as hard as ordinary diamonds, and therefore best-suited for industrial or scientific use.
The revelations were made to Russian journalists by experts from the Novosibirsk Institute of Geology and Mineralogy. Making the find sound even more exotic, there are claims that some of the diamonds were formed by the asteroid impact, or are “space diamonds:”
The type of stones at Popigai are known as “impact diamonds,” which theoretically result when something like a meteor plows into an existing diamond deposit at high velocity. The Russians say most such diamonds found in the past have been “space diamonds” of extraterrestrial origin found in meteor craters.
[The Russian scientist-spokespersons] claim the Popigai site is unique in the world, thus making Russia the monopoly proprietor of a resource that’s likely to become increasingly important in high-precision scientific and industrial processes.
“The value of impact diamonds is added by their unusual abrasive features and large grain size,” Pokhilenko told Tass. “This expands significantly the scope of their industrial use and makes them more valuable for industrial purposes.”
Some reasons offered for the long delay in revealing the diamond field’s existence is that the Soviet Union was already exploiting other diamond deposits, and also was producing artificial diamonds.