Diamonds are notoriously difficult to find, but a new discovery may have made it easier. Studies have shown that a much less sought-after gemstone contains clues that can tell if diamonds are nearby, which can speed up the process of finding them.

“Diamond producers sometimes wish they could mine gold, copper or another raw material, because there is nothing more difficult than finding and mining diamonds,” senior researcher Andrea Giuliani from ETH Zurich’s Institute of Geochemistry and Petrology said in a statement. “There is no method that guarantees you will find diamonds.”

Unfortunately humans have decided that we don’t want them that much, but the search for diamonds has turned up all kinds of interesting science. We’ve already established that diamonds are only found where a mineral called kimberlite is found, but that’s not half the story.

“Just looking for kimberlite is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Giuliani explained. “Once you find diamonds, the hard work of finding diamonds begins.”

Since a connection between olivine and diamond has been discovered, it seems that another mineral may have accelerated the process. Olivine makes up about half of the kimberlite rock and contains varying concentrations of magnesium and iron. The composition of olivine is very important here, as olivine contains more magnesium than iron, which seems to bode well for diamond miners.

For olivine to have a high iron content, the melt must penetrate the mantle, changing the composition of the rocks and destroying diamonds in the process. Low-iron, high-magnesium olivine did not undergo this geological process known as metasomatization, so the diamonds survived.

What about high iron? You must be unlucky, my friend. So is it high in magnesium? You’re in the land of diamonds, baby. De Beers funded the research and provided kimberlite samples, so they have early access to the results and are already using olivine analysis.

“Our study shows that diamonds remain intact only when kimberlites trap parts of the mantle that did not interact strongly with previous melting as they moved upward,” Giuliani said. “The great thing about this new method is not only is it simpler, but it also allows us to finally understand why previous methods worked.”