[extropy-chat] Volcanic diamond eruptions

[John K Clark]

John Wrote:

> it would take an extremely long time (possibly more than the age of the
> Universe) for an appreciable amount of diamond to decay into graphite."

At room temperature yes, but if you heat a diamond without oxygen and
without putting under very high pressure it will turn into graphite.
Geologists  have found deposits loaded with crystals shaped just like very
large diamonds but they are made of graphite; 15% of this ore once contained
diamonds of 10 carets or more, just one cubic foot of this stuff would have
been worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but now it's just land fill.
They figure for diamonds to remain stable they had to shoot from about 150
miles down to the earth's surface in just a few hours, that is far faster
and far deeper than normal volcanoes.  I would have thought that would
produce one hell of a boom but they don't seem to have caused as much
devastation as many non diamond eruptions, hence my confusion.

    John K Clark