Anyways, here's a summary of that article.
It was previously thought that kimberlite volcanoes haven't erupted in 40 million years. That they just stopped erupting after being active for 2.5 billion years, so it was assumed they were extinct.
However, a few recent breakthroughs and one discovery are changing that belief.
They have discovered that kimberlite volcanoes have not erupted consistently over earth's history, but rather have had periods of high activity and periods of no activity. They found the periods of high activity occurred approximately 26 million years after each supercontinent breakup. Which has happened 3 times in Earth's history. Things were very active during these peaks, but slowed down close to being non existing or millions of years or between eruptions outside of these time periods.
What is important to know here is the African Rift Valley started rifting 25 million years ago. What this means is we are very near 26 million years, a where a period of kimberlite volcanic eruptions should be expected based on what we now understand about these types of eruptions.
And sure enough, they just discovered that a volcano that erupted 10,000 years ago in Africa is a kimberlite volcano. They saw there very clear signature when doing a ultrasonic survey when studying the volcano. This appears to be the first and only known eruption so far related to the new rifting that's going on. But could be a sign that a period of activity has started.
Who's ready for it to rain diamonds? Because these volcano's launch diamonds into the atmosphere at supersonic speeds during eruptions.
apple.news
