Abstract
The pressure and temperature conditions of formation of natural diamond can be estimated by measuring the residual stress that an inclusion remains under within a diamond. Raman spectroscopy has been the most commonly used technique for determining this stress by utilising pressure-sensitive peak shifts in the Raman spectrum of both the inclusion and the diamond host. Here, we present a new approach to measure the residual stress using quantitative analysis of the birefringence induced in the diamond. As the analysis of stress-induced birefringence is very different from that of normal birefringence, an analytical model is developed that relates the spherical inclusion size, R i, host diamond thickness, L, and measured value of birefringence at the edge of the inclusion, \( \Updelta n(R_{\text{i}} )_{\text{av}} \), to the peak value of birefringence that has been encountered; to first order \( \Updelta n_{\text{pk}} = (3/4)(L/R_{\text{i}} ) \, \Updelta n(R_{\text{i}} )_{\text{av}} \). From this birefringence, the remnant pressure (P i) can be calculated using the photoelastic relationship \( \Updelta n_{\text{pk}} = - (3/4)n^{3} q_{\text{iso}} P_{\text{i}} \), where q iso is a piezo-optical coefficient, which can be assumed to be independent of crystallographic orientation, and n is the refractive index of the diamond. This model has been used in combination with quantitative birefringence analysis with a MetriPol system and compared to the results from both Raman point and 2D mapping analysis for a garnet inclusion in a diamond from the Udachnaya mine (Russia) and coesite inclusions in a diamond from the Finsch mine (South Africa). The birefringence model and analysis gave a remnant pressure of 0.53 ± 0.01 GPa for the garnet inclusion, from which a source pressure was calculated as 5.7 GPa at 1,175°C (temperature obtained from IR analysis of the diamond host). The Raman techniques could not be applied quantitatively to this sample to support the birefringence model; they were, however, applied to the largest coesite inclusion in the Finsch sample. The remnant pressure values obtained were 2.5 ± 0.1 GPa (birefringence), 2.5 ± 0.3 GPa (2D Raman map), and 2.5–2.6 GPa (Raman point analysis from all four inclusions). However, although the remnant pressures from the three methods were self-consistent, they led to anomalously low source pressure of 2.9 GPa at 1,150°C (temperature obtained from IR analysis) raising serious concerns about the use of the coesite-in-diamond geobarometer.
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Acknowledgments
DH wishes to thank EPSRC and DTC for funding of his PhD during which this research was carried out. Thanks go also to the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy at the Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, for use of their 2D Raman mapping equipment. We also thank DTC for allowing use of the IR equipment and Dr. David Fisher for processing the IR data. Dr. Judith Milledge is thanked for her advice and support during this project. The editor, Prof. Hans Keppler, and an anonymous reviewer are thanked for improving the manuscript. In addition, we wish to thank Dr. Sergei Goryainov, Institute of Geology & Mineralogy, Novosibirsk, Russia, for helpful comments on our manuscript and for his assistance in resolving the discrepancy between our work and that of Sobolev et al. (2000). This is contribution 628 from the Australian Research Council National Key Centre for the Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents (www.gemoc.mq.edu.au).
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Communicated by H. Keppler.
An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00410-011-0694-4
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Howell, D., Wood, I.G., Dobson, D.P. et al. Quantifying strain birefringence halos around inclusions in diamond. Contrib Mineral Petrol 160, 705–717 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00410-010-0503-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00410-010-0503-5