We geologists are hopeless romantics. We see beauty in the most violent processes of creation and destruction. Last week, while discussing the kimberlites of Brazil with my students, poetry took over: 'A diamond doesn't whine about the heat and pressure. It doesn't ask for permission. It ignores the crushing forces, it never breaks, and it becomes the hardest mineral on earth. It builds in silence and just rocks the stress like a crown. Eventually it surfaces, becoming the m