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posted by takyon on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the finder's-keepers dept.

According to ScienceMag, the palmlike Pandanus candelabrum plant has an affinity for diamonds. Or more precisely, an affinity for kimberlite.

A geologist has discovered a thorny, palm-like plant in Liberia that seems to grow only on top of kimberlite pipes—columns of volcanic rock hundreds of meters across that extend deep into Earth, left by ancient eruptions that exhumed diamonds from the mantle. [...] It has a stilt-like aerial root system, similar to mangrove trees, and rises to a height of 10 meters or more, spreading spiny, palm-like fronds. [...] Kimberlite pipes bring the gems to the surface in eruptions that sometimes rise faster than the speed of sound. The pipes are rare.

The Kimberlite pipes are rich in magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus, and the plant appears to be particularly adapted to these soils. It appears to grows no where else.

Prospecting has just gotten much easier. That may be good for the West African nations, but not necessarily for P. candelabrum. Kimberlite mines tend to be narrow and vertical, with much smaller footprints than open-pit copper mines, and their effluent—ground-up kimberlite—is benign.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Adamsjas on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:13PM

    by Adamsjas (4507) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:13PM (#179212)

    DeBeers normal stomping grounds were much further south. They have not been all that active in these equatorial African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and places further north for a long time (They left Sierra Leone in 1984).

    However, it appears that they have taken some steps to get back into these areas with the help of Canada and the UN. They even managed to get a Canadian commission to recommend that DeBeers manage the equatorial diamond trade to stem the flow of so-called conflict diamonds. See: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jan/13/sierraleone.unitednations [theguardian.com]

    Many people consider the whole concept of "Conflict/Blood Diamonds" to be a scam by DeBeers. Not that there hasn't been rebels enslaving people to mine, that has in fact happened, but the numbers of conflict diamonds in the market place is tiny. Still, the UN has marked ALL diamonds from these equatorial countries as blood diamonds, preventing these countries from utilizing all their natural resources.

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