“Diamonds are formed from compressed coal.”
✓ Actually Natural diamonds crystallize roughly 90 to 150 miles down in Earth's mantle under immense heat and pressure, far deeper than any coal seam has ever existed, and many diamonds are over a billion years old — older than the first land plants that would eventually become coal.
What we found
Why are diamonds not made from coal? They form far deeper, and many are older than coal itself.
The receipts
Transcript
Diamonds are formed from compressed coal. Except they're not. Most natural diamonds crystallize 90 to 150 miles beneath the surface — deeper than the distance from New York City to Philadelphia, straight down into the mantle. Coal forms in shallow sedimentary basins, rarely deeper than 2 miles, nowhere close to the pressure and 2,000-degree heat diamonds need. There's a timing problem too: many diamonds are over a billion years old, some nearly three billion, formed long before the first land plants ever grew. Coal simply didn't exist yet. Diamonds actually grow from ancient carbon deep in the mantle, then get blasted upward in volcanic eruptions called kimberlite pipes. The coal idea sounds logical. Pressure, plus carbon. But geology says otherwise. Would you have guessed diamonds are older than trees? Let me know in the comments and subscribe for a fact every day.
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