science in a country and western song

     Have you ever heard that old country and western song "I'm just an old chunk of coal, but I'm going to be a diamond some day?  Well, it's a science lesson. Diamonds are a form of carbon. They started out, as far as science can tell us, as rotting organic matter--dead leaves, and maybe some dinosaur droppings. When this material was compressed for eons, it turned eventually to coal, and in the end, some of it , after even more eons, became diamonds.