Diamond dissolution experiments help to test how different types of diamond resorption are developed in nature and what parameters play the primary role in their formation.
Experiments examine diamond resorption processes: - in the mantle source using multi-anvil apparatus at pressures ~ 6 GPa - during ascent in kimberlite magma using piston-cylinder apparatus at pressures 1 - 3 GPa - in near-surface environment after magma emplacement using gas-mixing furnace at 0.1 MPa and controlled oxygen fugacity
Experiments show that presence and composition of fluid in kimberlite magma plays most important role in determining resorption style of diamonds. Therefore, resorption features on natural diamonds can serve as a proxy of magmatic fluid in kimberlites.
Our experiments reproduced many of the diamond resorption features developed in kimberlite magma and inherited from the mantle. This helps to examine variations in the history of fluid exsolution of different kimberlite bodies as well as diamond-destructive metasomatic processes in the mantle.
Comparison of experimental results to the features of natural diamonds allows to discriminate resorption produced by interaction with kimberlite magma from the features developed on diamonds during metasomatic processes in the mantle. The present research is focused on understanding 1) the relationship between the features of kimberlite-induced resorption, explosivity of kimberlite eruptions driven by fluid exsolution and kimberlite lithology; 2) the origin of different types of mantle-derived diamond resorption and the nature of the corresponding metasomatic events.