From the Vault: The Nature of the Diamond, Part 4

We addressed in the first episode the widely held belief that diamond fragments or diamond powder are poisonous if ingested, and we talked about some alleged attempted diamond poisonings in history. The short modern read on that is that it seems like diamond powder is probably not actually reliably poisonous, but just to be saved, we were still saying, you know, I probably wouldn't need it. We talked a bit about the conditions under which diamond's form. There's going to be

some more about that today. We talked about their physical properties and a bit about their use in ancient cultures in ancient India, China, and the Roman Empire. In the last episode, we talked about some strange ancient beliefs recorded in the writings of plenty of the Elder and some other sources that in order to shatter a diamond, you must first soften it in the blood of a he goat. That's a good one. We also talked about the legend found in multiple cultures that there is this so called

valley of Gems where diamonds litter the ground. But you can't just go down there and get them because there are I don't know, poisonous, venomous snakes or some kind of monster or beast or something down There's some kind of danger, so you've got to have clever ways of getting the diamonds up to the cliffs above. Our favorite method that we read about involved meat getting the meat.

come from. And even some old books and authorities on diamonds do seem to suggest they believe this, that diamonds come from coal, but more recent sources argue that this is not the case, at least not for most diamonds.

see this with other businesses and areas as well. It occasionally turns up that I kept encountering that in my research sort of drove me out of the traditional search mode into some of the like a Google scholar and so forth. But there are a lot of websites out there that are clearly the main idea is like, let's just move up in the search for diamonds because we're trying to sell them exactly.

how do we know they don't come from coal? And the most extensive exploration of this that I turned up was on the good old geology dot com website, which I'm sure you've hit before, Rob, which does have solid articles that are well cited and you know, listing sources and all that. So it's one of these articles by the geologist Hobart King, who I think is the author of most of what's on geology dot com.

can't use carbon dating on them. The half life of carbon fourteen that you use to you test the decay of that in order to use carbon dating that's too short in time to accurately date materials that are on the order of millions of years old or more. This is why you can't use carbon dating for anything from the age of the dinosaurs or anything like that. Carbon dating is useful for carbon based remains that are on the scale of like thousands of years or tens of thousands of years old.

trapped along with it. And when scientists do these tests, these radioactive decay series tests on diamond inclusions, it seems that most diamonds are more than a billion years old. The common range I've seen is that the youngest diamonds are just shy of a billion years old and the oldest are more than three billion years old. And that means that natural diamonds can be that the ones that can be dated are pretty much all older than the

evolution of the first land plants. Plants first appeared in the Cambrian era roughly five hundred million years ago, and they didn't really flourish on land until later, with the big coal forming period being more like three hundred million years ago known as the Carboniferous period, which literally means

like the coal forming period. Since land plants are the source of the carbon in most coal deposits, it is unlikely that diamonds would have formed one to three billion years ago out of a chain of metamorphosis that has to start with the type of organism that didn't exist yet.

Coal is found in a sedimentary rocks formed by the deposition of layers of material on Earth's surface. These layers of material eventually get buried, they get horizontally compressed, and they harden into rock strata with the coal in traps there in the sedimentary rocks. Meanwhile, diamonds are usually found in vertical formations of igneous rocks. Igneous rocks are formed by fire. These are rocks that are created when magma cools and hardens into a solid. So coal and diamonds,

you're gonna find them in totally different geological settings. King goes on to list the four known natural sources of diamonds and he says that these are formation in the Earth's mantle, formation in subduction zones, formation at impact sites, and formation in space. Now, we talked in the last episode about diamonds that are formed in space and occasionally found in meteorites, and we also talked about diamonds that

are created by the incredible heat and pressure of space impacts. So, for example, if you have like a ten kilometer asteroid traveling at twenty kilometers per second, it enters Earth's atmosphere, it hits or explodes, there's going to it does that over an area with rocks bearing carbon, maybe rocks that have graphite in them, which is a form of carbon based mineral that's less dense than a diamond that impact, and that the heat and pressure there could turn the

graphite in the rocks into diamonds. Now, King says, in this case, technically the carbon could also come from coal. So like the asteroid, maybe hits an area with exposed or near surface coal seams. But most diamonds are not formed by space impact, so that could happen, But most of the diamonds you come across are not going to be from this source. Instead, King says, basically, all the diamonds that are commercially mined on Earth are the kind that are created deep down in the forge of the

Earth's mantle. Now, we already mentioned a bit about diamond formation in the mantle in a previous episode, but just to refresh, Scientists generally believe that the conditions of heat and pressure that you need in order to create a diamond only occur in certain areas, usually at a depth of about one hundred and fifty kilometers or greater from the surface, which is well below the crust deep into the mantle, and usually this would be around the interior

of continental plates. That is, of course way too deep to mind. We do not have any minds that go down one hundred and fifty kilometers underground, so we can only mine diamonds that are brought closer to the surface somehow. And as we mentioned in I think part two, maybe we find these diamonds in and around these vertical pipes of igneous rock known as kimber light or lamprote pipes.

And these are vertical columns of rock that were formed long ago by incredibly explosive volcanic eruptions from deep in the mantle. So magma from below flows up to the surface rapidly, and sometimes it breaks off pieces of the mantle, and these flows bring diamonds up to the surface with them.

And one sort of cool and creepy thing that King mentions offhand is that no one in human history, as far as we know, has ever witnessed the kind of deep source volcanic eruption that brings diamonds to the surface. These are known as kimber light eruptions. They are rare

compared to normal volcanic eruptions. They're very energetic and explosive, and most of the ones we know about took place long ago, so there are no historical records, like since the dawn of writing, of anybody ever describing or seeing one of these. And it seems like most of the ones that have taken place took place long, long ago.

within the mantle. So the coal would have to somehow get from these locations in the top layer of the crust down to like fifty times their normal depth or more underneath a continental plate to supply the carbon to make the diamonds, and that seems kind of unlikely, or at least rare. King thinks a more likely origin for the carbon in diamonds is just carbon that has been present in Earth rocks since early in the planet's formation, and there are sources of carbon that you can find

within the rocks of the Earth. Like I was reading another article about these incredibly explosive Kimber light eruptions, and one thing that seems to happen when these eruptions kick off is that there is like an expansion of CO

two gas deep down in the mantle. Like CO two, there's an area where there's a lot of carbon in the mantle, and the CO two gas starts to come out of solution, much like what happens when you pop the top on a carbonated soda, it starts to come out of solution and turn into a gas and want to rise quickly to the surface, and this of course

is extremely explosive and violent. However, to come back in the other direction and talk about an analogy to coal being the source of diamond formation, an analogy that is quite possible. King does acknowledge that very small diamonds are sometimes formed in what are called subduction zones, and this is where so you have different plates of the Earth's crust meeting. You have maybe an oceanic plate that is the part of the crust sitting underneath an ocean continental plate.

That's where you would have a continent, and they meet at a sort of joint, and where they meet, the oceanic plate is pushed down underneath the continental plate at this joint where they meet. So in the case of subduction, sedimentary rocks formed on the ocean floor can indeed be shoved down into the mantle. And it does seem that the carbon in these rocks may sometimes form diamonds in extreme heat and pressure in this subduction zone. But the

rocks in question here would probably not be coal. But King says instead other kinds of carbon bearing sediment based rocks that form mostly on the ocean floor, things like limestone and dolomite.

nineteen ninety five. Joe, are you familiar with the lil Uzivert.

media coverage. You might have heard something on late night comedy shows about this. In the way that it was described, I think the way I initially picked up on it too,

it sounded red. I kind of got the impression that was something impulsive, you know, like here's a hip hop artist and maybe on the spur of the moment, they're like, I like that diamond, I want it in my forehead, and then they did it, you know, kind of like anybody else in the world might say, you know, get a drunken tattoo or something like that.

Then the implantation was handled by professional jewelers, and I think they're referring to a consult by an expert piercer or an expert in body modification. So it sounds like it was rather an ordeal to get to the point where the diamond was actually put in the forehead, but it was successfully implanted, and now reportedly lil Uzivert didn't

keep the diamond implant. It came out during some crowdsurfing at a concert, but then they put it back in for a later concert, but then ultimately replaced it with a piercing. They still have the diamond though, so the way it was reported, a lot of late night shows had some fun with this idea too, that the diamond came out or was quote ripped out during a concert. That maybe made it sound like it was stolen, but

that doesn't seem to be the case. I was also impressed that and again this is just based on some articles of looking up, but they said that that Vert is a huge fan of the animated series Stephen Universe, and this was an influence on the choice in getting a pink forehead diamond. So I am familiar with Steven Universe. Great show, so I would I got to say, great choice.

implanted on his face in twenty sixteen. I couldn't find out much else about that one. Also, there is a rapper by the name of Sauce Walka who had a diamond facial implant, and another rapper, Little Pump, also had or has a diamond facial implant. So this seems to be a This is not a trend that's isolated to a single individual. We have multiple individuals out there in

the world who have or have had this procedure. Now, that Rolling Stone article includes some comments from Simon Bobev speaking on behalf of the New York based jewelers Eleante and Company that were involved with this particular forehead diamond, the pink diamond of Liloozi Vert, and he says the following quote. In the body modification world, they usually do everything in stainless steel or surgical grade steel, but in our case, we did everything with precious metals. We engineered

a specific mounting that clips and locks in place. There's a whole mechanism involved. It's not a standard piercing, a specific piece and part. We're both engineered with millimeter precision to get this put on little loosey vert. So again, I think an important takeaway from this is the diamond is not set directly in the forehead. It's not certainly

not set in the skull or anything like that. When it came out, a lot of people made jokes referring to a scene in one of the Avengers films in which like an Android character's jim stone is ripped out of their forehead, and you know, it's not quite the same, And then so it's ultimately mounted in metal, and then that metal is implanted in the flesh, much like a diamond is mounted in a ring, and like a diamond is mounted in an ear ring, which of course is

then mounted in the flesh. Okay, so you know, obviously, given the price tag on some of these diamonds, this is all extravagant, though in the end, perhaps not all that weirder than any other form of body modification, including more mainstream forms that we take for granted and don't even necessarily think of as body modification, like a standard ear piercing is so mainstream that you don't necessarily think

of it as body modification. But again, coming back to the idea of a diamond earring, in comparison, a diamond mounted in a piece of metal jewelry that is then secured to the human ear by one of several traditional methods, but most often via a hole punched in the ear lobe.

to do with like what culture one is in. You know, there's so many forms of piercing and body modification that are thought of as new and counterculture today, and they may very you know, they are generally perhaps counter to the mainstream culture, at least at least in Western nations, but they are often based on older traditions in other cultures, you know, traditions that were more standard and would not have been thought of his counterculture in those specific cultures.

So humans have engaged in ear piercing since very ancient times, I mean the origins of the practice are ultimately lost to the mists of prehistory. Let's see the Iceman, for instance, lived who live between thirty three fifty and thirty one oh five BCE. This is what we've talked about before, with his well preserved body and articles on his body that have provided a great deal of evidence about what life was like or may have been like for individuals

during this time period. There is also evidence that he had a pierced ear and an ear ring. We also have Sumerian graves from Earth that give us evidence of pierced ears from around twenty five hundred BCE. We have Egyptian ear piercings. This pushes the evidence in this case back to sixteen hundred BCE. We have Chinese examples that go back to one thousand BCE. South American examples date back to between eighteen hundred BC and three thousand BCE.

Plus just a lot of the literature of the ancient world makes at least passing mention of the ear rings of the air piercings. So there's a rich and varied history here of poking a hole through part of the ear lobe or parts of the ear lobe and inserting things for decorative purposes. But of course we're not just talking about piercings and earrings in general. Here, we're talking about diamonds. We're talking about ultimately mounting a diamond in

your flesh. And when we get back into diamonds, you can probably guess where some of the oldest evidence of diamond ear rings is going to take us. It's of course going to take us to India.

of of these old diamond ear rings. He includes in his book an ear decoration from the tenth to eleventh century CE. This is diamond and pink sapphire to be specific, set in gold, and Ogden adds that it's probably an ear ring, but similar artifacts from Java were actually vervals. These are decorative rings that went on a hawk or a pet bird's leg. Whoa so interesting ambiguity regarding some of these things. But he also includes an example of a golden ear ring from the first century BCE from

India classified as an early earring fragment. So suffice to say that we've been combining diamonds with our anatomy for more than two thousand years, But how long have we been using them for our teeth? Because you know, I've already mentioned musical performers, but also you have athletes, you have other celebrities who sometimes show up with diamond implants on their teeth, some sort of diamond dental work going on grills and so forth. I was looking into this

a little bit. We talked about, like, you know, some of these older ideas about, you know, don't put a diamond in your mouth because like the venom of the snakes from the Valley of Gems will will kill you, and other ideas. Health Wise, the main concerns and there don't seem to be a lot of like overt health concerns with grills, for example, most of the health concerns at all seem to relate to things like prolonged usage, like these are not things that are seemingly designed to

just be worn day in day out. These are for special occasions, These are for concerts, these are for media appearances or what have you. And on top of that, potential allergic reactions to base metals and if they're actually used and said grill, and also just the responsibility of keeping something that goes into your mouth clean and so forth. But I didn't run across any concerns related specifically to

the presence of diamonds themselves. Now, it's worth noting that while a lot of current of the current popularity of elaborate grills has its roots seemingly in like nineteen eighties hip hop culture, I think a lot of it coming out of like New York. And there's of course a strong connection here to dental procedures that replace teeth or

portions of teeth with precious metals and or jewelry. But the use of gold dental appliances goes back centuries and one of the most fascinating examples are the dental appliances of the etruscans. These go back as far as six thirty BCE. There's a really good article this was published on Vice back in twenty fourteen, called the title The Ancient History of Grills by Lauren Schwarzburg. I highly recommend

given this a read. It goes into a lot more depth than I'm going to cover here, but just to hit on some of the main points that the author

brings out that relate to what we're talking about. First of all, there's a pervasive idea that grills originated in ancient Egypt, and I think this is something you can probably find like repeated on certain websites, Like we were saying, but this was apparently due to an early twentieth century archaeological find that consisted of two teeth, two human teeth, actual teeth woven together with a gold wire and this was dated to twenty five hundred BCE, and this was

in Giza. Early interprettions of this artifact were that this wire work was done while the individual was still alive, that this was some sort of a dental procedure. But the more popular interpretation, the more recent interpretation, is that these teeth probably came out, you know, fell out or had to be pulled out, and were kept as a pendant, you know, worn around the neck or something, and then

the individual was buried with them. So, as schwartz Bird points out, there does not seem to be strong evidence for ancient Egyptian gold or metal teeth.

replacement or reused teeth. So to be clear, though, this was not functional, This is not something that you could they could have apparently eaten with, but it was decorative and it was a status symbol.

Like so this wasn't something I mean, you can get into probably complex analysis of societal pressure for various beauty trends and so forth, but for the most part, it sounds like this was something that that the women in question did because it established their status and it said, hey, I don't need functional front teeth like I have. I have cooks that will cook food for me that I that I can eat regardless of what my the functionality of my teeth. This is about, you know, showing that

that I have this heightened status. You know, I have wealth, I have power, and I do not have to live like common people.

absorbed into Roman culture either. Now in terms of putting gin and teeth, and we see this today again with diamond dental implants. I'm not going to run through all the very you can find lists online of all the various musical artists and celebrities who have diamonds and other gems in their mouth of one designer another. But Schwarzberg does point out that we have an example from Mayan civilization during the Classic period three hundred and nine hundred CE.

Mayan royalty would often have these small holes drilled into their upper teeth, and then they would have round pieces of jade implanted into those teeth, again as a status symbol. The article goes into again more depth, more ancient history, but also a lot more recent history of dental augmentations

like this. The author does point out that in the Philippines there were also traditions that go back I think around the thirteen hundred CE, in which you would have gold wrappings and gold pegs in teeth as another form of dental augmentation, again to announce one's status more than anything else. All Right, I have one final area to touch on here on the fusion of the human body with diamond and that concerns the proposition of diamond hip replacements.

So I ran across this. I was looking at articles about this that date back to at least the late nineteen nineties, and then a more recent paper published in a twenty twenty two issue of ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces that continues to discuss the possibility.

that would even better. Be even better. This would provide lower friction, higher wear and corrosion resistance, as well as an improved bonding surface to the bone, So you know, in not only making it more durable, but also just

like letting it interface with bone a little easier. Hmm okay, yeah, So, according to zellcas at All in the twenty twenty two ACS paper, quote, despite the excellent biocompatibility and superior mechanical properties, the major challenge of using diamond for implants such as those used in hip arthroplasty is the limitation of microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition or CVD techniques to synthesize diamond

on complex shaped objects. So what they're talking about this process, this is a process that involves depositing a solid material from a gaseous phase, and they go in to present a new CBD technique to apply diamond coating. I'm not going to get in at all the technical details of this, some of it kind of washed over me, to be honest, But like the general idea is that there seem to be a lot of experts out there who think like this could be the way that we enhance and improve

the functionality of hip replacements, these hip implants. But we're just not quite there, it seems, when it comes to figuring out the best way to apply said diamonds. HM. And again, it don't if you're imagining like a sort of blinged out human hip ry hip replacement, I don't think that's quite what it would look like. We're again talking more in the world of like you know, micro and nanodiamonds that are suspended and so forth. It's like

a coating. But I think it's interesting how these ideas kind of come back to some of the the ideas we were discussing earlier. You know, diamonds implanted in the body, but not as mere decoration in this case, but as a functional coating for a metal implant. And it also gets us close, maybe a little bit to that fictional idea of Wolverine and his adamantium coated bones or diamond patch and his presumably diamond based skeleton.

game to learn more. As we close out here, just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener mail, On Wednesdays we do a short form episode, and on Fridays we set us out most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.