
Found trapped in a diamond: a type of ice not known on Earth - pulisse
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-water-in-diamonds-20180308-story.html
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lamename
This is fascinating. I had no idea ice could take on so many crystalline forms
depending on the variety of conditions. Apparently there are other shapes even
beyond those mentioned in the article:
[http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/ice_phases.html](http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/ice_phases.html)

~~~
fastball
If you find this interesting, you might enjoy Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle",
which is based around a highly dangerous (and imaginary) form of ice, ice-
nine.

And even if you aren't super excited about ice-nine, it's still a highly
enjoyable read.

~~~
anamexis
There was also a real-life scare in the 70s around "polywater" [1][2] that
some people worried could "infect" other water.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater)

[2] [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/polywater-the-
soviet-s...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/polywater-the-soviet-
scientific-secret-that-made-the-world-gulp)

~~~
scruple
That Wikipedia article is great. I love the introduction paragraph.

> By 1969 the popular press had taken notice and sparked fears of a "polywater
> gap" in the USA.

I find it illuminating to understand that "journalists," or the "popular
press," were ratcheting up the "fear sells" / fake news bullshit at least as
far back as 1969 (and I'm sure it goes back much further). If you were
ignorant, and I certainly am, you would think that this is a wholly new
phenomenon. I mean, that is what the same "popular press" is telling us today,
right?

~~~
njarboe
There was even a phrase coined in the 1890's for such journalism; "Yellow
Journalism[1]"

From the wikipedia article. Frank Luther Mott (of the same era) on the five
main characteristics of yellow journalism:

1\. Scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news

2\. Lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings

3\. Use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudoscience, and a parade
of false learning from so-called experts

4\. Emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips

5\. Dramatic sympathy with the "underdog" against the system.

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kaycebasques
The bit about compressibility tickles my mind. Really cool that some compounds
maintain their structure while collapsing the space between, while others
change their structure entirely when subjected to pressure. Would make for a
cool visualization.

Are there theories about what structure ice-VIII, ice-IX, etc. would take?

~~~
ghaff
Ice has at least 16 different phases:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice)

Ice XVII has been predicted: [http://www.sci-
news.com/othersciences/chemistry/ice-xvii-che...](http://www.sci-
news.com/othersciences/chemistry/ice-xvii-chemists-predict-existence-new-form-
ice-03633.html)

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asafira
Hey everyone --- I work with defects in diamond for my PhD! While they are
completely different from the chunks of ice described here, let me know if
there is something I can help with.

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ghaff
Ice is really a fascinating material generally, even just “normal” ice. My
thesis advisor has pretty much made a career out of studying it. I didn’t do
my material science work on ice personally though; he also studied high
temperature super alloys earlier in his career.

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bananatron
What a trip that in the future the most coveted jewelry will probably be from
materials found on other planets (assuming we haven't gotten over this jewelry
thing).

~~~
joering2
Mandatory in case someone wonders about OP last part:

[https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-
bulls...](https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bullshit)

~~~
jey
Diamonds are bullshit, but body adornment is a human universal that exists in
all cultures. So the diamond bullshit is hijacking something very real and
human.

~~~
bananatron
You're totally right, but there are also a lot of 'real' and 'human/animal'
traditions that we've collectively decided aren't worth continuing. I'd argue
this should be one of them, but I'm not bullish on my preference vs. diamond
advertising budget and a culture of perpetual consumerism.

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userbinator
Given how much pressure it's under, I wonder if it might cause the diamond to
explode if subjected to additional stress.

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chaoticmass
So is it still 'frozen' (it is ice afterall) even above 0c?

~~~
komali2
Yes, it is!

Water has a pretty interesting relationship with pressure (interesting to
nerds like me anyway) :
[https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/60170/freezing-p...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/60170/freezing-
point-of-water-with-respect-to-pressure)

~~~
joering2
+1 I read an interesting article a while ago that i cannot find anymore, it
was about dooms day from science point of view.

The bottom line is in case of metheor falling down it is not the impact or
cloud of dust up killing you, but simple change of pressure that will not only
boil all oceans but also will boil blood and water in your body. As pressure
goes down so falls the boiling point of liquid.

Edit: typos

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peter303
Some outer solar system moons are mostly water ice. Theircores could be this
phase of ice.

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oldmancoyote
This conflicts with what I think I know about the occurrence of diamonds. For
the most part diamonds are formed just below the surface in melts rich in
dissolved carbon dioxide. These materials rise through the crust through very
narrow pipes and explode when the carbon dioxide comes out of solution at the
surface.

These explosions form the bell shaped bodies that are mined for diamonds.
Because of the phase behavior of carbon dioxide rich melts, and because the
diamond grade just below the bell is very low, diamonds seem to be formed in
the high pressure streams of carbon dioxide released when the temperature
declines and the confining pressure is released at the surface.

Perhaps there are "seed" crystals formed much deeper and such a crystal formed
the nucleus for this diamond. From this popular article it is not possible to
determine at what depth the water crystal formed. Conceivably it could have
formed in the stream of carbon dioxide at the surface.

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andmarios
I don't know what they do on their website but it is as heavy as they can
come. Scrolling the article in Chrome, causes music (play music, playing in
another tab) to skip!

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aaraun
But it was “known on Earth”, and had been observed in the lab - it just hadn’t
yet been observed in nature. A bit of a sensational title.

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eganist
Seeing "atoms" used _in reference to water molecules_ has me feeling a
particular way. Am I nitpicking too hard?

\--

edit: moccachino makes a good point below that I missed on my first two passes
-- it's referring to the actual positioning of the atoms within water
molecules, which makes sense now that I'm giving it another pass. This is
evident in referring in one part to "oxygen atoms" specifically.

~~~
moccachino
It seems to me the usage is correct, they are referencing the atoms that make
up the water molecules.

~~~
eganist
It took me your comment to realize it. Thanks for pointing it out: the point
that wasn't effectively conveyed to me was that the actual relative
positioning of oxygen atoms relative to each other seems to be shifting under
pressure.

This speaks well to DrNuke's point as well.

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drumttocs8
Thank god it isn't ice-nine!

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DoreenMichele
And people keep acting like there's nothing left to really discover on earth.

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maliker
Dang, got here too late to make the Vonnegut joke.

But still in time to share a link about strange forms of non-ice H2O:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater)

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pichaipedro
tl;dr: "Diamonds can trap small bubbles of extremely dense pressurized water
when they form. Then, as the diamond moves up through the mantle, the water
inclusion is subjected to cooler temperatures while remaining under the same
pressurized conditions. In that very specific case, ice-VII can occur."

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Sonnol53
How much is it worth?

~~~
samstave
Show me your BTC wallet

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mjcohen
Obviously ice 9.

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stupidcar
Let's just be grateful it wasn't ice-IX they found.

~~~
mcherm
Sounds like they haven't actually broken open the diamond, so can we really be
sure?

~~~
kurthr
They don't mention it in the article, but it's likely to be IR spectroscopy,
since that can measure resonance of H2O molecular bonds, which would be
specific to symmetries/energies in Ice-7 and very different from the known
spectrum of diamond.

edit to add:
[http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_vibrational_spectrum.html](http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_vibrational_spectrum.html)

However, I suppose it could also be X-ray crystallography, which would measure
the actual crystal structure. Probably other methods as well...

~~~
creep
They do mention it in the article

>But while they were scanning the diamonds with high intensity X-rays, they
saw something else: The first conclusive evidence of ice-VII on the planet.

But probably they used other methods to confirm.

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nfarrell
Ice Nine???

~~~
samstave
Tyrell Corp security are here to have a word....

