For a long time, davemaoite was considered an abundant and geochemically important mineral in the Earth’s mantle.
But scientists have never found direct evidence of its existence because it breaks down into other minerals as it moves to the surface and the pressure is reduced.
However, analysis of the diamond from Botswana, which forms in the mantle about 660 kilometers below Earth’s surface, contains intact davemaoite trapped within.
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Due to its unique properties that can only be found in diamonds buried in the Earth’s mantle, the International Mineralogical Association has now confirmed davemaoite as a new mineral.
“The discovery of davemaoite was a surprise,” Oliver Tschauner, study author and a mineralogist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told Live Science.
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