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A few weeks ago a member tried to estimate the number of ammonite fossils in the Earth. Here is a similiar calculation for diamonds: a quadrillion tons. I wonder if DeBeers has read this? https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/17/world/diamonds-under-earth-surface-trnd/index.html

These diamonds from space formed inside a long-lost planet, scientists say. By Sarah Kaplan, Washington Post, April 17, 2018 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/04/17/these-space-diamonds-come-from-a-long-lost-planet-scientists-say/ The open access paper is: Farhang Nabiei, James Badro, Teresa Dennenwaldt, Emad Oveisi, Marco Cantoni, Cécile Hébert, Ahmed El Goresy, Jean-Alix Barrat, and Philippe Gillet, 2018, A large planetary body inferred from diamond inclusions in a ureilite meteorite Nature Communications volume 9, Article number: 1327 (2018) doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03808-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03808-6 Supplementary Information at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03808-6#Sec16 https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-018-03808-6/MediaObjects/41467_2018_3808_MOESM1_ESM.pdf The reviewer's comments from peer-review are included. It is chance to see how scientists conduct peer-review. Reviewers comments at: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-018-03808-6/MediaObjects/41467_2018_3808_MOESM2_ESM.pdf Yours, Paul H.

Diamonds May Not Be So Rare As Once Thought Johns Hopkins Scientists’ Chemical Model Shows a Simpler Deep Earth Formation, Joh Hopkins http://releases.jhu.edu/2015/11/03/diamonds-may-not-be-so-rare-as-once-thought/ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151103140444.htm Dimitri A. Sverjensky and Fang Huang, 2015, Diamond formation due to a pH drop during fluid–rock interactions Nature Communications 6, Article number: 8702 (2015) doi:10.1038/ncomms9702 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9702 Yours, Paul H.

Big Diamonds Bring Scientists A Message From Superdeep Earth NPR, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/15/505386423/big-diamonds-bring-scientists-a-message-from-superdeep-earth Large, rare diamonds offer window into inner workings of Earth's mantle https://carnegiescience.edu/news/biggest-and-best-diamonds-formed-deep-mantle-metallic-liquid https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-12/gioa-lrd120716.php http://phys.org/news/2016-12-biggest-diamonds-deep-mantle-metallic.html http://www.livescience.com/57222-biggest-diamonds-form-in-liquid-metal-pools.html Diamonds: Huge, rare precious stones form 750km underground in Earth's mantle, International Business Times UK http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/huge-rare-diamonds-are-born-pools-liquid-metal-deep-below-earths-surface-1596725 the paper is: Smith, E. M., S. B. Shirey, F. Nestola, and others, 2016, Large gem diamonds from metallic liquid in Earth’s deep mantle. Science. Vol. 354, Issue 6318, pp. 1403-1405. DOI: 10.1126/science.aal1303 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6318/1403 Yours, Paul H.

This is a short story that is evidence that an amateur fossil collector can make an important DISCOVERY. Laramie, Wyoming- University of Wyoming- circa 1974-1975 (I just did not want to Google this short story to make it a monograph.) This was when I was a student at UW. A student of Dr. Don Boyd who taught classes concerning Invertebrate Fossils to Freshman and Sophomore Geology majors... also was like all of us... a curious fossil collector. Dr. Boyd also taught Historical Geology / Stratigraphy as it is also as important as the fossils within a formation as well. Wyoming students were being "groomed" to be Petroleum Geologists. You know... the ones in the small trailer next to a 105 foot deep well Drilling Rig being awakened at all hours of the night and busy all day while drilling. When the "mud and drilling fluids" are being circulated, this fluid mix brings up parts and pieces of the formation that has been drilled into. When the drilling is getting closer to the objective... the Petroleum Engineer is taken from his "high tea and five course meals" at a local hotel to come to the drilling site. I had inspected drilling rigs in Wyoming in July... and in January. I understand why the drilling crew is paid well. This is not something for the weak and prone to tripping over drill pipe or chains. So now you understand the glamorous field career of a "soft rock Geologist". The geology department had been making thin sections. Maybe for the Optical Mineralogy class... maybe for some Master Degree paper... I forget. But the lap wheels to thin the rock thin sections, thin enough to put under a polarized microscope... was having the wheel damaged with scratches. The first thing a Professor will do is find the "dip $**t" who was costing the department money. Normal operating procedure. This did not happen once, but too frequently. These samples were being recovered from a location just south of the Colorado / Wyoming State Line. Just south of Laramie... near Virginia Dale, Colorado. Why were these samples being... studied? Well, that is where our under grad student of geology made an important discovery... sitting down for a sack lunch break. Our mystery student, who can most likely be found in a Wyoming Geological Survey newsletter, while eating lunch "scouting" out weathered granite noticed something... odd. Something that was not suppose to be there. A brachiopod. This was an Ordovician brachiopod. Common as sand in Indiana, Ohio and much of this area. But this area of Colorado and Wyoming had... no... Ordovician rock formations. It was assumed that the Ordovician oceans never made it to this area. Or, was completely eroded away and lost to all. Dr. Boyd recognized the brachiopod and knew it was... Ordovician. This created some excitement. The WHY, HOW and WHERE is it kind of excitement... especially to an unknown now becoming known.