> Diamonds are made of which element?And the answer: Carbon.Photo credit: Koichi Yajima/Getty Images.Most natural diamonds are formed overmillions of years, when carbon is exposed to very high pressure deep in theEarth's mantle. But not all of the diamonds that are found on Earth originatedhere. Primitive interstellar meteorites have been found to contain diamonds aswell.Miles and miles below our Earth's surface, the elements that comprise life aboveground begin to look a little, well, different. Between the Earth's crust andits superheated core is its mantle – a region so hot and pressurized that themolecular structure of elements themselves are altered. Carbon's atoms arecrushed together into a new, lattice-like structure. It is in these extremeconditions that carbon becomes diamond. So how, then, do diamonds appear on our Earth's surface? While there are anumber of ways to procure this brilliant gemstone, scientists believe thatancient volcanic eruptions were the force that transported diamonds toaccessible depths. Back when the Earth was much hotter, very deep-seatedvolcanic eruptions carried the already-formed diamonds from the upper mantle tothe surface of the Earth. At the surface, the eruption built up a mound ofvolcanic material that eventually cooled to become what we now call Kimberlites.Kimberlites are typically the source of many of the world's mined diamonds.Recent technology has innovated a way to create diamonds far above the Earth'smantle. Today, with the help of science, diamonds can be grown in a laboratory.The first synthetic diamonds were created in 1955 by General Electric:scientists attempted to replicate the high pressure, high temperature conditionsof the Earth's mantle to force carbon into a diamond's crystalline structure.While successful, the technique was nowhere near the real deal. It wasn't untilthe '70s that the process was refined to create near identical replicas of anyEarthen creation. Check out the video below to learn more about the creation of diamonds.