This picture shows the Hope Diamond, a blue diamond, surrounded by other white diamonds.
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Diamonds are Ancient History!
News story originally written on September 12, 2002
Diamonds are the hardest things on Earth. They make sparkling jewelry and saw blades that can cut through anything. Diamonds form deep within the Earth's mantle layer from stuff called carbon that is under pressure from the heavy rocks above it.
Scientists have found that all diamonds are really old! They discovered that there were only three times during Earth’s history when diamonds were made and that Earth no longer makes diamonds like it used to.
The oldest diamonds were made 3.3 billion years ago when Earth was rather young. The second time diamonds were made was 2.9 billion years ago. The youngest diamonds on Earth are still very old. They are 1.2 billion years old but a few smaller diamonds are only about 100 million years old.
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