image: Assortment of CLIPPIR diamond offcuts used in the study. The largest is 9.6 carats. These diamonds could be analyzed by destructive means (polishing to expose inclusions) whereas many other diamonds studied were polished gemstones that were only borrowed and studied non-destructively. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the Dec. 16, 2016, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by E.M Smith at Gemological Institute of America in New York, N.Y., and colleagues was titled, "Large gem diamonds from metallic liquid in Earth's deep mantle." view more
Credit: Evan Smith