In recent plate tectonics, as the crust gets sub ducted and melted, the heavier stuff like the gold, nickel, other heavy metals, and diamonds, settle out down into the liquid, and the lighter elements and compounds rise toward the top.

The acclimation of the lighter material under the North American continent has caused it to rise above sea level, there are similar stories in the turnover of the ancient crust and the regeneration of newer crust, that would leave areas of the world with out much in the way of concentrations of heavy minerals.

(The Falkin Islands are rich in gold deposits) although most are below sea level, another antarctic gold mine story......Britain fought a war over the retention of the islands on these grounds...

Diamond settles out in the melt? Are you suggesting there are diamonds in oceanic crustal material?

Diamond is not particularly heavy, at least compared to heavy metals.

Obviously a topic for another thread (or forum), but I don't think the UK fought a war with Argentina because of the rich mineral wealth in and around the Falkland Islands .

India has slammed into China, on it's way out of antarctic waters, now Australia is headed for Japan, sweeping the denser Indonesian islands into the subduction process, any mineral deposits we do not mine in the next 10 million years will be sucked under.

I did not mean to infer that diamonds could be found in oceanic crustal material, just that most of the original crust has already been recycled.

1) Diamonds are carbon. Carbon is anything but a heavy element!
2) Continents do not float on the mantle because of an accumulation of lighter material under them. Continents float because they are lighter than mantle!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Black gold seems more likely...unless you have a treasure map indicating otherwise.

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The vast majority of subducted crust is oceanic. Continental crust tends to clog up the trench. The Indonesian islands will just be accreted to a continental landmass. See, for example, the US state of California.

according to this, there's one only 50LY away,
2500 miles diameter, 10^34 carats.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I hear the argument about synthetic diamonds being "perfect" or more clearer than the mined ones, but what about the age of the diamond. In my opinion that will be De beers fall back, yours might be nicer and cheaper but ours is millions of years old formed by mother Earth just for you. That will beat any lab grown diamond.

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This whole internet thing is probably not a passing fad.-Ronald Brak
While speech might be free, consequences cost.-Doodler

TBH, the carbon in the manufactured diamond is at least 4.6 billion years old.

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Fields of Space

LOGIC, n.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

In the Year 2525.

"One small step for (a) man. One giant leap for mankind".

If an astronaut doesn't need good grammar, niether does you.

Host of Seraphim

Notice we only hear about conflict diamonds and never about conflict rubies, opals or saphires? Guess which gemstone has an artificially propped up price which relies upon keeping stones off the market.

Indeed, but our diamonds were not made by the hands mere mortals!!!!

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This whole internet thing is probably not a passing fad.-Ronald Brak
While speech might be free, consequences cost.-Doodler

South Africa is only synonymous with diamonds because they have worked hadrd to make it that way. There are other sources though... Have a look at http://www.kimberleydiamonds.com.au/

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Who wears raw diamonds?

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

If you're looking for volunteers..."I will! I will!"

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Did you know diamonds can burn?

Video here..

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/rss/file...S205_2_rss.xml

Other links:

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php...205_2_004v.mp4
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php...205_2_004v.flv

..now where did i leave those pliers?

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There is no light in space. - Moon Man

That link brings up a massive wall of "text"; how about an excerpt/summary/different link?

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Other links added in post above.

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The most important mental attribute anyone can have is the ability to recognize when one's own comprehension of a topic is insufficient. Without that, one's knowledge simply becomes tautological: it is "impossible" for there to exist wisdom one does not already possess. - JayUtah

There is no light in space. - Moon Man

Put carbon graphite under enough heat(2,200 degrees Fahrenheit) and pressure(50,000 atmospheres), it will crystallize into the hardest material known.

The manufacturing process was developed in 1950s.

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math problem solving

With regard to earlier in the thread, my father took up prospecting as a hobby after he retired. He liked hunting, camping and gold so why not combine all three?

He showed me some nice pieces of quartz with "color" interlaced through it. Metal detector being useful for finding those.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

The Falklands were awash with oilmen when I visited in 1998, but the crash of the oil price to near $10/barrel caused them to cut the exploratory drilling program short. If it were as promising as it is sometimes made out to be, I think they would have been back sooner. Various attempts to look for gold, diamonds etc, there have come to little.

I think the main reason we fought a war with Argentina was because Mrs Thatcher had become so unpopular that a war was about the only thing that could save her political career.

The war and subsequent defence of the Falkland Islands have been costly to Britain. The islands are an autonomous dependency, so the economic benefits of the minerals and fish of the Falkland Islands go mainly to the Falkland Islanders, all 2000 or so of them, not the British. When I visited, I think they had one of the world's highest gdp/capita, free healthcare, no income tax and a generous pension, mainly paid for on the back of fishing licences for squid. Catches have since gone down, so I don't think things are quite as wonderful as they used to be. Low wool prices haven't helped them either.