Russia Declassifies "Trillions of Carats" in Extraterrestrial Diamonds

Russia has shocked the international gem industry by revealing the existence of huge diamond fields in eastern Siberia resulting from a prehistoric asteroid collision. Russia has just declassified the discovery of a vast new diamond field containing "trillions of carats," enough to supply global markets for another 3,000 years. The Soviets discovered the bonanza back in the 1970s beneath a 35-million-year-old, 62-mile diameter asteroid crater in eastern Siberia known as Popigai Astroblem. They decided to keep it secret, and not to exploit it. The veil of secrecy was finally lifted over the weekend, and Moscow permitted scientists from the nearby Novosibirsk Institute of Geology and Mineralogy to talk about it with Russian journalists. Director of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Academician Nikolai Pokhilenko said, "The first results of research were sufficient to talk about a possible overturn of the entire world market of diamonds." "The resources of super-hard diamonds contained in rocks of the Popigai crypto-explosion structure, are by a factor of ten bigger than all the world's known reserves. We are speaking about trillions of carats, for comparison – present-day known reserves in Yakutia are estimated at one billion carats," he said.

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/521357.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2012/0917/Russia-reveals-shiny-state-secret-It-s-awash-in-diamonds
http://www.mining.com/russia-flush-with-trillions-of-carats-in-extraterrestrial-gems-60923/