Russian huge diamond field converts markets

 Russia has declassified a large deposit of super hard diamonds which are twice harder than usual ones. The sensational statement was made by Novosibirsk scientists of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The deposit is located on the border of the Krasnoyarsk region and Yakutia in the Popigai crypto-explosion structure- a hundred kilometres` meteorite crater formed 35 million years ago. Back in the 1970s, Soviet geologists discovered there the first extra hard "diamonds" - impact diamonds having unusual features. They were two times harder than regular ones and had a different structure. But due to the fact that at that time the government decided to develop construction of plants to produce synthetic diamonds, any studies stopped, and data on the field were classified.

After the declassification, geologists were able to return to studies of this mineral. And the changed economic demands made impact diamonds extremely popular material because of their unusual properties.

Director of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Academician Nikolai Pokhilenko said "the first results of research were sufficient to talk about a possible overturn of the entire world market of diamonds." "The resources of super-hard diamonds contained in rocks of the Popigai crypto-explosion structure, are by a factor of ten bigger than the world`s all known reserves. We are speaking about trillions of carats, for comparison – present-day known reserves in Yakutia are estimated at one billion carats," he said.

Deputy Director of the Yakutnipromalmaz Institute Gennady Nikitin warns: "The Popigai diamonds can overturn everything, and is not clear what will happen to prices in the market."
According to Academician Pokhilenko, "the value of impact diamonds is added by their unusual abrasive features and large grain size." "This expands significantly the scope of their industrial use and makes them more valuable for industrial purposes / in metalworking, in production of efficient semiconductors, etc./," he said.

In addition, as yet, impact diamonds with similar specifications have not been discovered anywhere else in the world. Thus, experts speak about their extraterrestrial origin and claim that Russia becomes a monopoly owner of unlimited supplies of this unique raw material, which is of highly demand in advanced technologies. Scientists forecast, this raw material reserves "would be enough for the entire world for 3.000 years." Use of these minerals in the manufacturing industry is capable of a technical revolution.

Many major corporations have big interest for this raw material. This was stated during a roundtable "New Economy - New Materials", which was organised during the Interra-2012 Forum in Novosibirsk.


/ITAR-TASS/