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Pink diamonds erupted to Earth’s surface after early supercontinent’s breakup (scientificamerican.com)
72 points by Bender on Sept 20, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 26 comments



This seems to be the inspiration for the Pokémon Diancie: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Diancie_(Pok%C3%A9mo...


Pokémon characters must have been conceptualized and designed by quite a few people at this point. Each of those character writers will draw inspiration from various sources.

I’m not quite sure what to do with knowing it was “inspired” by a certain geological phenomenon. Yes, it might be a feel-good fact about a fictional character which might guide kids to learn about the world around them.

However, unless there’s some deeper aspect that carries through to character development, the Pokémon world can easily get filled with superficial characters with a disjointed “look at me, I’m so cosmopolitan” feel.


It's a fun paper from the (predominately) W.Australian Curtin University Geosciences mafia:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-40904-8

The Argyle diamond mine discussed here is tapped out and closed these days (IIRC) - the red and pink diamonds it produced are still circulating and fetching a solid price.

eg: https://www.australiandiamondvalley.com.au/products/10ct-aut...

Diamond Dimensions: .10ct = 3.00mm diameter $79K (AU)


What’s the mafia angle? They’re a respected university?


If you prefer substitute Cohort, Cadre, Group, Bunch, Gang, etc ...

I'm Australian, in geophysics, local, and have casual Australian speech patterns.

The bunch over at Curtin are pretty solid, they're a distinct mob from, say, Mike Dentith et al. over at UWA (same state, different university).


Lot's of text here, but very little towards an actual answer.

Are you saying that all of these universities act as one on this subject matter to the point that if any member disagrees "it'd be a real shame if something were to happen to them" type of situation? I'm not in geophysics, not local, nor have casual Australian speech patterns, and I have no earthly clue what/who Mike Dentith is or the relevance.

What's the advantage of being mafia-like in the realm of geophysics? If they are actively promoting bad theories from within the confines of Australia, the world is a big place full of other scientists that can dispute outside the control of this purported mafia.


> Are you saying ..

No.

You seem to have a vivid imagination and not a lot of real world interaction with others.

People tend to largely clump when they collaborate; if you pivot via citeseer on each author in the given paper you'll see a number of different papers in common with each other (and a number of outgroup papers).

Mike Dentith, with an office some ~ 20km away from Curtin, is part of another large clump of papers in the same field - there are some interactions, of course, but the helicopter view of these papers and their co-author networks is not dissimilar to social media interactions that densely cluster with sparser interlinks.

Have you ever generated network visualisations of research papers | social media interactions?

It's an interesting exercise.


>You seem to have a vivid imagination and not a lot of real world interaction with others.

That's totally uncalled for and very immature. What's the point? Does it make you feel good about yourself to belittle others? If your assessment of me shows anything about the rest of your qualities in life, then boy, I don't know...


Give it a rest. What they really mean is a group of scientists who are known to publish together. They’re just using the word mafia inappropriately/jokingly.


Its a colloquialism for group of people involved in an enterprise or craft. Same usage as "The Paypal Mafia".


1.22 update:


Send me location.


It's crazy that some of the most valuable items on earth are made in huge quantities, whenever the plate tectonics feel like it. Makes you realize how limited our power over the earth is (except for the slow, plodding, yet disastrous pollution of the environment).


Our power over biosphere is currently quite immense, our power over geosphere is practically nil


For me, the term “power” denotes a combination of will and capability. The human impact on the biosphere often seems less than intentional, more bull in a china shop than ship’s captain.

But to agree, human impact on geological features is much more limited than biological ones. I can thing of just a few with very localized effects:

* water wells :: subsidence

* fracking :: small earthquakes


We've eradicated insect life and deforested large swaths of the planet pretty effectively and intentionally.


How do you know that diamonds are made in huge quantities? The common knowledge is that it's rare.


Thats common knowledge because De Beers wants us to think that.

https://archive.ph/eFwVj


Quality diamonds are rare. This discovery relates to quality diamonds.


Natural crypto


Diamonds aren’t rare. Diamonds that can be cost effectively extracted are rare.


that only debeers diamonds are real diamonds and those "blood diamonds" are bad.


i thought the real diamonds campaign was fighting against lab grown diamonds. are they disputing blood diamonds in that campaign as well?


oh no. real in their terms mean diamonds that have a profit margin for them. the theft of those african diamonds mean those diamonds are now untraceable and that scares debeers


Diamonds come a factory in China.


https://www.statista.com/topics/1704/diamond-industry/#topic...

> Diamonds also have a high industrial value. They are especially well regarded as a material for cutting and grinding tools due to their extreme hardness. Around half of all mined diamonds are not of gemstone quality and are used for industrial purposes. Today, the vast industrial demand for diamonds is mostly satisfied by synthetic diamonds (also known as lab-grown or lab created diamonds). Lab-grown diamonds are also increasingly being used in jewelry as an ethical and less expensive alternative to mined diamonds.




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