Researchers discovered a pattern where diamonds spew from the ground after huge volcanic eruptions deep beneath the earth’s surface, LiveScience reported.
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This discovery, found through a series of computer models, found that diamonds are formed about 93 miles below the earth’s surface and are then brought up to the surface through eruptions called kimberlites.
Thomas Gernon, a professor of Earth and climate science at the University of Southampton in England, told the magazine that kimberlites most often occur when tectonic plates re-arrange themselves, like, say, when the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart.
Gernon added that the findings could help researchers discover diamond deposits, and it could also help explain why other types of volcanic eruptions occur long after supercontinents break up.
“It’s a fundamental and highly organized physical process, so it’s likely not just kimberlites responding to it, but it could be a whole array of Earth system processes that are responding to this as well,” Gernon said.
