World's oldest diamond aged 3.6 billion years found in Russia

An international team of scientists found that a small diamond that was found in the rocks of Udachnaya kimberlite pipe in the Republic of Yakutia was the oldest specimen in history. It is believed that the found diamond is about 3.6 billion years old, Science in Siberia, a publication of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences said

"It appears that the diamond that we have discovered is the oldest diamond that man has studied to date. The age of the syngenetic (formed simultaneously - ed.) inclusion of sulfide to this diamond is estimated at approximately 3.6 billion years," scientific director of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician Nikolai Pokhilenko said.

The age of the finding was determined by method of isotope dating.

A growing mineral, olivine, took over the 0.3 mm diamond at a temperature of more than 1400 degrees Celsius and pressures of more than 5.5 GPa, the study says. This corresponds to depths of about 180 kilometres, where the lower boundary of the lithospheric mantle of ancient platforms starts entering into the depths of the region diamond stability.

The most common type of rocks that carry diamonds from the depths of the lithospheric mantle to the earth's surface are kimberlites. Russian and foreign scientists paid attention to samples of rocks and minerals of the lithospheric mantle in the Udachnaya pipe, which is one of the largest diamond deposits in Russia, back during the late 1960s. This interest is based on the unique freshness of kimberlites and fragments of minerals and rocks of the lithospheric mantle in them.