Magmatic Material in Sandstone Shows Prospects for New Diamond Deposits within the Northern East European Platform

Abstract

A detailed study of sandstones recovered from the upper part of the recently discovered KL-01 magmatic pipe in the southern part of the Arkhangelsk diamondiferous province (ADP), containing magmatic material and rare kimberlite indicator minerals, is presented in this paper. Results are compared to the composition of crater samples of the highly diamondiferous Vladimir Grib kimberlite pipe and several poorly to non-diamondiferous ADP pipes. To identify the type of magmatic material admixture, a model of binary mixing between country Vendian sandstones and typical ADP magmatic rocks based on correlations of La/Yb and Zr/Nb ratios and Ni contents is proposed. The modeling results show that the type of magmatic component in the KL-01 samples can be identified as kimberlite, with a maximum admixture of 20 vol.%. Kimberlite indicator mineral geochemistry did not exclude the interpretation that the composition, structure, thermal state and metasomatic enrichment of the lithospheric mantle sampled by the KL-01 pipe were suitable for the formation and preservation of diamonds. The lower boundary of the sampled lithospheric mantle could be in the depth range of 175–190 km, with a diamond window width of 55–70 km. Thus, the sandstones could represent the upper level of the crater of a new kimberlite pipe.

Keywords

• Kola craton
• diamond exploration
• kimberlite indicator mineral
• pyrope geochemistry
• lithospheric mantle
• saponite