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Calcium anomalies in the mantle and a subducted metaserpentinite origin for diamonds

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Abstract

Most natural diamonds are thought to have formed within the upper mantle, before transport to the surface by kimberlites or lamproites, in a magnesian, calcium-poor, garnet-bearing harzburgite or dunite. Serpentinites, formed by hydration of oceanic lithosphere, are sufficiently poor in calcium and have high enough Mg/(Mg + Fe) values that, following subduction and prograde metamorphism to ∼1, 100 °C, 55–60 kbar, they would equilibrate as such harzburgites and dunites. Diamonds may be the high-pressure equivalent of graphite produced, or introduced, during serpentinization. The apparent restriction of diamonds and low-Ca garnet xenocrysts to cratons may result from the fact that subducted metaserpentinites, lodged within the mantle beneath the cratons, have been effectively isolated from participation in subsequent tectonic and magmatic events that occurred outside the craton margins.

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Author notes

  1. Daniel J. Schulze

    Present address: Department of Geological Sciences, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC, 20008, USA

    Daniel J. Schulze

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Schulze, D. Calcium anomalies in the mantle and a subducted metaserpentinite origin for diamonds. Nature 319, 483–485 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1038/319483a0

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