the slopes of Mount Meredith, in East Antarctica, Australian scientists have found kimberlite, a rock where sometimes there are diamonds. Researchers have conducted tests of texture, mineralogy and geochemistry of the samples and confirm their finding in the journal Nature Communications . “Importantly, the article does not report the discovery of a commercially viable, even diamond deposit, which announced the discovery of rocks of a type often have diamonds,” says Robert Larter, a geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS ).
Diamonds are formed at very high temperature and pressure, to more than 150 kilometers in the subsurface molten rock in the Earth’s mantle, explains Nature . Millions of years later, the eruptions make these gems emerge to the surface where they are preserved in formations of igneous rock called kimberlite, which hitherto had been discovered on every continent except Antarctica. Gregory Yaxley (Australian National University) and his colleagues are now finding the authors of the white continent.
“results are very interesting, but not surprising given the present geology in East Antarctica,” says Teal Riley, BAS geologist, in a statement of the institution. Remember also that only about 10% of these kimberlites are economically viable, so the finding is far from being able to extrapolate to a diamond mining there.
Antarctic Treaty and the Madrid Protocol (on Antarctic environmental protection), signed in 1991, states that it is prohibited “any activity relating to mineral resources, other than scientific research,” recalls the BAS. Actually it is so 50-year moratorium that can be rearranged in 2041 as long as they agree most of the member countries of the treaty.
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