In spite of what you learned watching super hero movies, even with super strength you could never transform a chunk of coal into a diamond. For one thing, coal is called a “fossil fuel” because it’s formed from the remains of plant and animal life from 300 million years ago. Geologists indicate that diamonds, on the other hand, were formed billions of years ago, long before dinosaurs ever ruled the earth. Secondly, diamonds are made from a single, pure element—carbon. Coal, again because of its fossil fuel background, is full of elemental impurities. Coal also forms at a depth rarely more than two miles beneath the surface of the earth, and pressure at that depth is not sufficient to crystalize the carbon. Diamonds form at least 87 miles beneath the earth’s crust and are carried toward the surface by rare, deep-sourced volcanic eruptions. It is true, however, that charcoal is full of carbon, but without all of the extreme conditions that form similar matter into the hardest substance on earth, purified coal turns into an entirely different form of carbon—soft, crumbly graphite.
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