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Physicochemical formation conditions of natural diamond deduced from experimental study of the eclogite-carbonatite-sulfide-diamond system

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Abstract

A diagram of the syngenesis of diamond, silicate, carbonate, and sulfide minerals and melts is compiled based on experimental data on phase relations in the heterogeneous eclogite-carbonate-sulfidediamond system at P = 7 GPa. Evidence is provided that silicate and carbonate minerals are paragenetic, whereas sulfides are xenogenic with respect to diamond. Diamond and paragenetic phases are formed in completely miscible carbonate-silicate growth melts with dissolved elemental carbon. Coherent data of physicochemical experiment and mineralogy of primary inclusions in natural diamonds allows us to prove the mantle-carbonatite theory of diamond origin. The genetic classification of primary inclusions in natural diamonds is based on this theory. The phase diagrams of syngenesis are applicable to interpretation of diamond and syngenetic minerals formation in natural magma sources. They ascertain physicochemical mechanism of natural diamond formation and conditions of entrapment of paragenetic and xenogenic mineral phases by growing diamonds.

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  1. Institute of Experimental Mineralogy, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Akademika Osip’yana 4, Chernogolovka, Moscow oblast, 141432, Russia

    Yu. A. Litvin

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Original Russian Text © Yu.A. Litvin, 2012, published in Geologiya Rudnykh Mestorozhdenii, 2012, Vol. 54, No. 6, pp. 523–539.

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Litvin, Y.A. Physicochemical formation conditions of natural diamond deduced from experimental study of the eclogite-carbonatite-sulfide-diamond system. Geol. Ore Deposits 54, 443–457 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1075701512060062

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