Why olivine and diamonds are best friends

Kimberlite rock consists of over 50 per cent of the greenish mineral olivine. (Photograph: ETH Zurich / Eduard Gübelin) Hardly any gemstone is more difficult to find than diamonds. Geologists from ETH Zurich and the University of Melbourne have now established a link between their occurrence and the mineral olivine. This could make the search for diamonds easier in the future. In brief. The abundance of magnesium and iron in the mineral olivine provides information on whether or not diamonds could be present in a kimberlite rock sample. The more magnesium is found in the olivine, the more likely it is that diamonds are present as well.