Kimberlite

Hewn kimberlite core sample from the James Bay Lowlands region of Northern Ontario, Canada. Grains of green olivine and purplish red garnet are visible. The sample is 13 centimeters (5 inches) long.

Kimberlite is a type of ultrapotassic, ultramafic, igneous rock best known for occasionally containing diamonds. Its mineral content usually includes olivine, phlogopite, pyroxene, and garnet, accompanied by a variety of trace minerals. Kimberlite occurs in the Earth's crust in vertical structures known as kimberlite pipes. These pipes are the most important source of mined diamonds today.

Kimberlite is an igneous rock.

• Kimberlite

Formation

The general consensus regarding kimberlites is that they are formed deep within the mantle, at depths between 150 and 450 kilometers, from anomalously enriched exotic mantle compositions. They are erupted rapidly and violently, often with the release of considerable amounts of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and volatile components. The depth of melting and the process of generation makes kimberlites prone to hosting diamond xenocrysts.

The volcanic explosions produce vertical columns of rock (volcanic pipes or kimberlite pipes) that rise from the magma reservoirs. The morphology of kimberlite pipes is varied, but it generally includes a sheeted dike complex of vertically dipping feeder dikes in the root of the pipe, extending down to the mantle. Within 1.5-2 kilometers (km) of the surface, the highly pressured magma explodes upward and expands to form a conical to cylindrical diatreme, which erupts to the surface.

The surface expression is rarely preserved, but it is usually similar to a maar volcano. The diameter of a kimberlite pipe at the surface is typically a few hundred meters to a kilometer.

Many kimberlite pipes are believed to have formed about 70 to 150 million years ago, but in Southern Africa, there are several formed between 60 to 1600 million years ago.

Petrology

Kimberlites are divided into Group I (basaltic) and Group II (micaceous) kimberlites. This division is made along mineralogical grounds.

The mineralogy of Group I kimberlites is considered to represent the products of melting of lherzolite and harzburgite, eclogite and peridotite under lower mantle conditions. The mineralogy of Group II kimberlites may represent a similar melting environment to that of Group I kimberlites, the difference in mineralogy being caused by the preponderance of water versus carbon dioxide.

Group I kimberlites

Group I kimberlites are of CO₂-rich ultramafic potassic igneous rocks dominated by a primary mineral assemblage of forsteritic olivine, magnesian ilmenite, chromian pyrope, almandine-pyrope, chromian diopside (in some cases subcalcic), phlogopite, enstatite and of Ti-poor chromite. Group I kimberlites exhibit a distinctive inequigranular texture cause by macrocrystic (0.5-10 mm) to megacrystic (10-200 mm) phenocrysts of olivine, pyrope, chromian diopside, magnesian ilmenite and phlogopite in a fine to medium grained groundmass.

The groundmass mineralogy, which more closely resembles a true composition of the igneous rock, contains forsteritic olivine, pyrope garnet, Cr-diopside, magnesian ilmenite and spinel.

Group II kimberlites

Group-II kimberlites (or orangeites) are ultrapotassic, peralkaline rocks rich in volatiles (dominantly H₂O). The distinctive characteristic of orangeites is phlogopite macrocrysts and microphenocrysts, together with groundmass micas that vary in composition from phlogopite to "tetraferriphlogopite" (anomalously Fe-rich phlogopite). Resorbed olivine macrocrysts and euhedral primary crystals of groundmass olivine are common but not essential constituents.

Characteristic primary phases in the groundmass include: zoned pyroxenes (cores of diopside rimmed by Ti-aegirine); spinel-group minerals (magnesian chromite to titaniferous magnetite); Sr- and REE-rich perovskite; Sr-rich apatite; REE-rich phosphates (monazite, daqingshanite); potassian barian hollandite group minerals; Nb-bearing rutile and Mn-bearing ilmenite.

Kimberlitic indicator minerals

Kimberlites are peculiar igneous rocks because they contain a variety of mineral species with peculiar chemical compositions. These minerals—such as potassic richterite, chromian diopside (a pyroxene), chromium spinels, magnesian ilmenite, and garnets rich in pyrope plus chromium—are generally absent from most other igneous rocks, making them particularly useful as indicators for kimberlites.

The indicator minerals are generally sought in stream sediments in modern alluvial material. Their presence, when found, may be indicative of the presence of kimberlite within the erosional watershed, which has produced the alluvium.

Geochemistry

The geochemistry of Kimberlites is defined by the following parameters:

• Ultramafic; MgO >12% and generally >15%
• Ultrapotassic; Molar K₂O/Al₂O₃ >3
• Near-primitive Ni (>400ppm), Cr (>1000ppm), Co (>150ppm)
• Enrichment in rare earth elements (REE)
• Moderate to high LILE enrichment; ΣLILE = >1,000ppm [LILE = large-ion lithophile elements, such as K, Ba, Rb, Cs, Sr.]
• High H₂O and CO₂ content

Economic importance

Kimberlites are the most important source of primary diamonds. Many kimberlite pipes also produce rich alluvial diamond placer deposits. However, only about 1 in 200 kimberlite pipes contain gem-quality diamonds.

The deposits occurring at Kimberley, South Africa were the first recognized and the source of the name. The Kimberley diamonds were originally found in weathered kimberlite which was colored yellow by limonite, and so was called yellow ground. Deeper workings encountered less altered rock, serpentinized kimberlite, which miners call blue ground.

Related rock types

• Lamproite
• Lamprophyre
• Nepheline syenite
• Ultrapotassic igneous rocks
• Kalsititic rocks

See also

• Diamond
• Garnet
• Igneous rock
• Olivine
• Pyroxene
• South Africa

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Farndon, John. 2006. The Practical Encyclopedia of Rocks & Minerals: How to Find, Identify, Collect and Maintain the World's best Specimens, with over 1000 Photographs and Artworks. London: Lorenz Books. ISBN 0754815412.

• Klein, Cornelis, and Barbara Dutrow. 2007. Manual of Mineral Science. 23rd ed. New York: John Wiley. ISBN 978-0471721574.

• Mitchell, Roger Howard. 1995. Kimberlites, Orangeites, and Related Rocks. Springer. ISBN 0306450224.

• Pellant, Chris. 2002. Rocks and Minerals. Smithsonian Handbooks. New York: Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0789491060.

• Shaffer, Paul R., Herbert S. Zim, and Raymond Perlman. 2001. Rocks, Gems and Minerals. Rev. ed. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 1582381321.

External links

• Kimberlite: Introduction. Retrieved May 21, 2007.

• Kimberlite-hosted diamonds. Retrieved May 21, 2007.

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