This myth is easily debunked. It's safer to say that in the geological family tree, diamonds and coal are distant cousins at best. While both are carbon-based, their respective "homes" are rather far from each other. Coal is found near the surface, in the earth's crust, while diamonds are found much deeper in the earth's mantle-the thick layer between the thin crust and earth's metal core. The truth is, coal and diamonds are very different, and the natural processes that form these minerals are not the same either.
Hopefully this article hasn't ruined your childhood, or induced a trust issue with the education system-or at least more so than you probably already have. The fact is, science is always changing. With the world's smartest people dedicated to expanding our knowledge of everything around us, of course we'll experience informational changes. Who knows, maybe the information in this article will be proven false in the years to come.
More outdated myths can be found here.
