[meteorite-list] NPA 12-30-1962 Diamonds found in the Dyalphur Meteorite

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: The Times Recorder
City: Zanesville, Ohio
Date: Sunday, December 30, 1962
Page: "A SECTION - PAGE 7", 40 total pages

Diamonds Found In Meteorite

     WASHINGTON (UPI) - Another diamond strike has been made in matter from 
space.
     The diamonds apparently were formed 10 to 30 million years ago when a 
couple of meteoroids collided with terrific impact millions of miles from 
the earth.
     The latest discovery of diamonds in a meteorite, the fourth in history 
to be confirmed, was reported in the technical journal "Science" by Dr. 
Michael E. Lipschutz.
     Lipschutz is an astrochemist on duty with Goddard Space Flight Center 
of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The study of 
meteorites is considered by NASA to be an important phase of space 
exploration.
     These bits or chunks of matter, which have broken their orbital 
moorings deep in the solar system and crash-landed on earth, have been 
called "space probes in reverse."

No Alarm Caused

     Lipschutz' discoveries will not alarm the diamond miners of South 
Africa or the diamond merchants of Amsterdam.
     Diamonds from space are extremely rare and are not of gem quality. They 
are tiny, they are black - as all meteoritic diamonds appear to be, and they 
are about half graphite. Graphite is a soft form of carbon which transforms 
into hard diamond under great pressure and heat.
     The recently discovered diamonds were in minute samples of the Dyalphur 
meteorite which was seen to fall in India on May 8, 1872. It weighed about 
10 ounces. Most of it is in the British Museum, but the Chicago National 
History Museum obtained a bit of it weighing about one-seventh of an ounce.
     The Chicago institution permitted Lipschutz to remove samples totaling 
about one twenty-eight thousands of an ounce. The diamond crystals in his 
samples were so small that it would take hundreds of millions of them to 
measure an inch.

Uses X-Ray Analysis

     The observe them at all Lipschutz had to use an X-ray analysis 
technique. This modern method also used to confirm the presence of diamonds 
in the other three meteorites.
     The other diamond-bearing meteorites are the Novo Urei, 4.5 pounds, 
which fell in Russia in 1886; the Goalpara, six pounds, which was found in 
the jewel collection of the Rajah of Goalpara in 1858; and the gigantic 
Canyon Diablo meteorite of Arizona.
     The Canyon Diablo weighed about half a million tons when it hit the 
earth in the dim past. The crater it dug is about three-fourths of a mile 
wide and 560 feet deep.
     Lipschutz and Prof. Edward Anders of the University of Chicago reported 
in a paper last year that diamonds were formed in the great Arizona 
meteorite by shock transformed of graphite when it crashed. These diamonds 
were disclosed by X-ray analysis in 1939.
     The largest meteorite diamonds are about the size of the tip of a sharp 
lead pencil. The smallest are invisible.

(end)

Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
Wichita, Kansas
http://www.meteoritearticles.com
http://www.kansasmeteoritesociety.com
http://www.imca.cc

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PDF copy of this article, and most I post (and about 1/2 of those on my 
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The NPA in the subject line, stands for Newspaper Article. The old list 
server allowed us a search feature the current does not, so I guess this is 
more for quick reference and shortening the subject line now.