December 2020 - Lab Grown Magazine

December 2020 | The Lab Grown Diamond Resource Book 20 To advertise call (888) 832-1109 | December 2020 21 Pebble Diamonds Meteors are instantly renamed meteorites when they soar through our atmosphere and crash land on Earth. The largest meteorites leave their mark as enormous gullies in the ground called impact craters. The best-preserved impact crater is Barrin- ger Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona. There, more than 50,000 years ago, a mete- orite weighing about 270,000 metric tons (300,000 tons) slammed into Earth with the power of 2.5 million tons of TNT. The impact blasted a hole 1000 meters (3,281 feet) wide and about 230 meters (750 feet) deep and left diamonds a plenty. Most thought the forceful impact on carbon-fused land made the tiny diamonds. That is until modern day science stepped in. Over a hundred impact craters have been identified on Earth. The most famous per- haps is the Chicxulub Crater, bringing us back to Mexico.The Chicxulub crater is half- submerged in the Gulf of Mexico and is one of the largest impact craters ever discovered. Many scientists think this meteorite, which measured roughly 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide, triggered the extinction of the dino- saurs (and most world life) around 65 million years ago. It also seeded parts of Mexico with Aerial view of Barringer Meteor Crater. (Photo: National Geographic) tons of tiny diamonds disguised in scattered black pebbles of space rock. Collision Cash Out This year, an Indonesian coffin maker thought he might be at the end of his days when he heard “screams from the sky.” What he was about to see would defy all odds. A softball-sized black rock burst through his roof and hurtled into his bedroom. Steaming with heat and smelling of sulfur, the space stone rolled right up to him. The 2.1-kg rock is estimated to be 4.5 bil- lion years old. It is classified as a CM1/2 carbona- ceous chondrite, an extremely rare type. Minutes after post- ing a picture on his New York Post article, dated November 18, 2020 about the rare meteorite that landed in Indonesia. >>