Daily Devotional – December 2
Geology


Diamonds are valuable because they are rare. Diamonds are rare because they formed almost 90 miles below the surface of the Earth and were only thrust up to the surface in a few localized areas. But when did this release of these beautiful gemstones occur? One of the clues is the relatively unstable nature of the carbon structure that created the diamonds.


Diamonds are made from pure carbon, but they are dazzlingly clear - unlike black carbon that makes up coal, or the grey form of carbon, called graphite (used in pencils). Although diamonds are the hardest known naturally occurring mineral, they are both brittle (easily fractured along their crystalline lines) and unstable. Temperatures and pressures slightly below and above where they form cause diamonds to rapidly degenerate to a softer and more stable form of carbon known as graphite. Thus, it is believed that diamonds could only have formed about 90 miles below the Earth’s surface where the temperature is between 900 degrees Celsius – 1200 degrees Celsius (~1,650 degrees Fahrenheit - 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit) and the pressure is just right for the diamond crystal structure to form. IF it took years (or even days) for these diamonds to travel to the surface of the Earth, they would have passed through a zone where the temperature and pressure would have forced the diamond structure to revert into a more stable graphite structure. But they did not revert and made it to the Earth’s surface as diamonds. Thus, most experts accept that diamonds must have been explosively spewed from 90 miles below to the Earth’s surface within a matter of 7-20 hours. What event in history would cause this to happen?


During Noah’s Flood, the Bible states that “all the fountains of the deep broke up” (Genesis 7:11). This was a unique one-time event, and nothing like it has happened before or since. For diamonds to be carried rapidly to the surface, molten blobs of lava rock from the mantle of the Earth needed to burst through the rock layers of the Earth. This molten mantle material called kimberlite would have had to burst from sources starting 125 miles below the surface of the Earth and travel all the way to the Earth’s surface through chimney-like pipes. The process carried diamonds with it as the molten rock passed the 90 mile “diamond-making” depth. We do not see this happening today; today’s volcanoes spew lava slowly from depths much closer to the surface. It is in these kimberlite crater areas (primarily at specific locations in southern/central Africa, Canada, Siberia, Australia, and Brazil) where modern diamond hunters seek their fortunes. It was the fracturing of the Earth during Noah’s Flood that made it possible for us to enjoy the beauty of the diamond. In fact, every woman wearing a diamond can use it as a witnessing tool. Diamonds were formed at the diamond-making depth and then thrust upward with the magma in the kimberlite pipes in a matter of hours during the violent upheaval of the Flood of Noah’s time. How diamonds are made proclaim that the biblical Flood is truth!

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up,.…
~ Genesis 7:11

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett