ITAR-TASS (Russia), CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
MOSCOW – The Kremlin has authorized scientists to finally reveal what they say are “trillions of carats” of diamonds located in a field in eastern Siberia that could forever change the market of the precious gem.
The Russians have know since the 1970s of this 35-million-year-old and 62-mile wide meteor site known as Poigai, but have kept it a secret in an effort to control the market fed by their other mines and production of artificial diamonds.
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A Siberian diamond mine (Stepanova)
Different than the diamonds that typically make it onto engagement rings, these come from the high-speed impact of an asteroid with graphite deposit, making them “twice as hard” and well-suited for industry, according to ITAR-TASS.
This specific feature of the stones “expands significantly the scope of their industrial use and makes them more valuable for industrial purposes,” Nikolai Pokhilenko, director of Novosibirsk Institute of Geology and Mineralogy Director, explained last week to ITAR-TASS.
With production innovation, the resource will become more and more important in advanced scientific fields, notes the Christian Science Monitor.