Half-billion-year-old 'zombie' burrows into the Earth's heart, trapped between diamonds

New research has revealed how the explosion of life 541 million years ago left incredible traces deep in the Earth's interior, where the mantle is covered with diamonds.

A team of scientists led by geochemist Andrea Giulani from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) has found signs of Cambrian creatures inside kimberlite, a diamond-filled volcanic rock that was raised from hundreds of kilometers below the ground.

According to Science Alert, they found a shift in the ratios of specific carbon isotopes around 250 million years ago, around the time that sediments from the Cambrian Explosion - a biological explosion hundreds of millions of years ago - would have changed. deposited into the Earth's mantle, through the planet's complex geological activity.

Carbon-rich kimberlite, including diamonds and "zombie" of creatures more than half a billion years old, has just been brought back to the surface - (Photo: David Swart)

Carbon trapped in sediment cannot come from abiotic processes, according to isotope analysis.

It is the remains of organisms that lived on Earth during the Cambrian period. The subduction process during plate tectonics has caused pieces of Earth's crust to "carry" on the back of sediments filled with Cambrian "zombie" to crawl underneath, regenerating into the deep mantle.

As is known, the Earth's crust is not seamless but consists of 15-20 tectonic plates, continuously sliding on top of each other, rising or falling under each other, causing continuous changes in the shape of continents and oceans throughout history. earth history.

The mantle is also where most of the Earth's diamonds are formed, so these ancient zombies found a new grave among the diamonds, only to have some of them accidentally lying on the geyser. of the volcano, along with other mantle materials, are exposed to sunlight again when the volcano erupts, while most are still "resting" hundreds of kilometers below our feet.

The study has just been published in the journal Science Advances.