Diamond Engagement Rings

It isn’t just our eyes that get bedazzled when we see diamonds. The dazzle got to little amoeba creatures that lived in the sea millions of years ago. So much so that they coveted it and coated themselves with it.

Where did the diamonds come from those many years ago? From way out in space through the asteroid that crashed into the earth and wiped out the whole dinosaur population. Well, those large lumbering mammoths couldn’t face the asteroid onslaught but these little organisms could. They are called agglutinated foraminifera and scientists believe that these little single-celled creatures not just survived but did so dazzlingly well indeed!

The diamonds and diamond dust were formed probably due to the huge impact and the carbon from the asteroid being subjected to such intense pressure and heat. During an excavation in Italy in the Umbria-Marche basin, researchers were surprised to find fossils of these organisms covered in diamond dust. What these creatures had done was to coat themselves with the sediment of diamond dust on the ocean floor so it would become a kind of armour to protect them.

Some of these absolutely miniscule diamonds might just have been formed out of the Earth’s graphite but scientists believe that a lot of it came from the asteroid itself, as did a number of other minerals. From space rock to dazzling rocks over sixty million years ago is something indeed to ponder about. And those amoeba-like creatures? They must have surely have had a feminine streak to go gaga over that dazzle!

Tags: Diamonds

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 8:55 am and is filed under Diamonds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.