‘Trillions of Karats’ Found in Diamond Hoard Under Russian Asteroid
So much for South Africa, Northern Russia is now the home to the planet's largest cache of diamonds. The Russian government releaved publicly recently something they've kept under wraps for decades: an asteroid impact crater near the Arctic Ocean contains 100 times more diamonds than the rest of the known world's reserves.
The Daily Mail reports that the stones are
super-hard diamonds contained in rocks of the Popigai crypto-explosion structure are by a factor of ten bigger than the world's all known reserves,' he said.
'We are speaking about trillions of carats. By comparison, present-day known reserves in Yakutia (a Russian mine) are estimated at one billion carats.'
The stones at Popigai are known as 'impact diamonds' which result when an object like a meteor strikes an existing diamond deposit.
They are also unique, which will make them even more sought-after in high-precision scientific and industrial markets.
How will knowledge of a massive hoard of diamonds affect the tightly controlled and regulated diamond market?
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