It might be that what set prebiotic chemistry in motion and kept it going in the early days of the Earth was dust from outer space accumulating in holes melted into ice sheets. Researchers at ETH Zurich and the University of Cambridge have used a computer model to test this scenario.

Hardly any gemstone is more difficult to find than diamonds. Geologists from ETH Zurich and the University of Melbourne have now established a link between their occurrence and the mineral olivine. This could make the search for diamonds easier in the future.