Helium in diamonds unravels over a billion years of craton metasomatism.

Chemical events involving deep carbon- and water-rich fluids impact the continental lithosphere over its history. Diamonds are a by-product of such episodic fluid infiltrations, and entrapment of these fluids as microinclusions in lithospheric diamonds provide unique opportunities to investigate their nature. However, until now, direct constraints on the timing of such events have not been available. Here we report three alteration events in the southwest Kaapvaal lithosphere using U-Th-He geochronology of fluid-bearing diamonds, and constrain the upper limit of He diffusivity (to D ≈ 1.8 × 10-19 cm2 s-1), thus providing a means to directly place both upper and lower age limits on these alteration episodes. The youngest, during the Cretaceous, involved highly saline fluids, indicating a relationship with late-Mesozoic kimberlite eruptions. Remnants of two preceding events, by a Paleozoic silicic fluid and a Proterozoic carbonatitic fluid, are also encapsulated in Kaapvaal diamonds and are likely coeval with major surface tectonic events (e.g. the Damara and Namaqua-Natal orogenies).

Archaean and Proterozoic diamond growth from contrasting styles of large-scale magmatism.

Precise dating of diamond growth is required to understand the interior workings of the early Earth and the deep carbon cycle. Here we report Sm-Nd isotope data from 26 individual garnet inclusions from 26 harzburgitic diamonds from Venetia, South Africa. Garnet inclusions and host diamonds comprise two compositional suites formed under markedly different conditions and define two isochrons, one Archaean (2.95 Ga) and one Proterozoic (1.15 Ga). The Archaean diamond suite formed from relatively cool fluid-dominated metasomatism during rifting of the southern shelf of the Zimbabwe Craton. The 1.8 billion years younger Proterozoic diamond suite formed by melt-dominated metasomatism related to the 1.1 Ga Umkondo Large Igneous Province. The results demonstrate that resolving the time of diamond growth events requires dating of individual inclusions, and that there was a major change in the magmatic processes responsible for harzburgitic diamond formation beneath Venetia from the Archaean to the Proterozoic.Dating of inclusions within diamonds is used to reconstruct Earth's geodynamic history. Here, the authors report isotope data on individual garnet inclusions within diamonds from Venetia, South Africa, showing that two suites of diamonds define two isochrons, showing the importance of dating individual inclusions.

Formation of diamond in the Earth's mantle.

The principal sources of natural diamonds are peridotitic (about 2/3 of diamonds) and eclogitic (1/3) domains located at 140-200 km depth in the subcratonic lithospheric mantle. There, diamonds probably form during redox reactions in the presence of melt (likely for eclogitic and lherzolitic diamonds) or under subsolidus conditions in the presence of CHO fluids (likely for harzburgitic diamonds). Co-variations of δ(13)C and the nitrogen content of diamonds suggest that two modes of formation may have been operational in peridotitic sources: (1) reduction of carbonates, that during closed system fractionation drives diamond compositions to higher δ(13)C values and lower nitrogen concentrations and (2) oxidation of methane, that in a closed system leads to a trend of decreasing δ(13)C with decreasing nitrogen. The present day redox state of subcratonic lithospheric mantle is generally too reduced to allow for methane oxidation to be a widespread process. Therefore, reduction of carbonate dissolved in melts and fluids is likely the dominant mode of diamond formation for the Phanerozoic (545 Ma-present) and Proterozoic (2.5 Ga-545 Ma). Model calculations indicate, however, that for predominantly Paleoarchean (3.6-3.2 Ga) to Mesoarchean (3.2-2.8 Ga) harzburgitic diamonds, methane reduction is the principal mode of precipitation. This suggests that the reduced present day character (oxygen fugacity below carbonate stability) of peridotitic diamond sources may be a secondary feature, possibly acquired during reducing Archean (>2.5 Ga) metasomatism. Recycling of biogenic carbonates back into the mantle through subduction only became an important process in the Paleoproterozoic (2.5-1.6 Ga) and diamonds forming during carbonate reduction, therefore, may predominantly be post-Archean in age. For eclogitic diamonds, open system fractionation processes involving separation of a CO(2) fluid appear to dominate, but in principal the same two modes of formation (methane oxidation, carbonate reduction) may have operated. Direct conversion of graphitized subducted organic matter is not considered to be an important process for the formation of eclogitic diamonds. The possible derivation of (12)C enriched carbon in eclogitic diamonds from remobilized former organic matter is, however, feasible in some cases and seems likely involved, for example, in the formation of sublithospheric eclogitic diamonds from the former Jagersfontein Mine (South Africa).