pete, the cheap shot remark was because I know you, and I thought you were personally not living up to your usual standards. I might well not make it to anyone on the other side where I don't know them and have any knowledge of their own standards, or where I have already seen that they use that sort of remark habitually. I thought that you were letting yourself down there.

As to contaminating diamond - yes, it is hard, but diamond in the raw state is not as smooth as cut diamond. And even cut diamond, at the molecular level, is going to have unevennesses in the surface of the crystal matrix which could pick up modern carbon. Then, as soon as it is processed, by pulverising the diamond and burning it, it is impossible to keep it clear of modern carbon. It's in the air, it's in the water, it's in any solvents used in cleaning (all carbon based), it's in the apparatus. In normal lab processes, these sources of error are calibrated by testing with control materials. It was discussed in the article (or one of those I read). The full process had not been reported in the YEC tests of diamond.

Penny