University of Tennessee professor Larry Taylor is studying a rare rock called diamondiforous peridotite, which contains 30,000 diamonds to seek clues on how the gems are naturally formed.
There may be 30,000 diamonds lodged inside a golf-ball-sized stone found in Siberia last year, but the rare rock is essentially worthless -- except to scientists, that is.
The tiny diamonds are less than a millimeter in size, giving them no commercial value.
But finding a rare cluster of diamonds in one small rock makes it a trove of information for researchers like Larry Taylor, a University of Tennessee geologist who is trying to better understand how exactly the gems are formed.
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