Mapping global kimberlite potential from reconstructions of mantle flow over the past billion years.

ABSTRACT: Kimberlites are the primary source of economic grade diamonds. Their geologically rapid eruptions preferentially occur near or through thick and ancient continental lithosphere. Studies combining tomographic models with tectonic reconstructions and kimberlite emplacement ages and locations have revealed spatial correlations between large low shear velocity provinces in the lowermost mantle and reconstructed global kimberlite eruption locations over the last 320 Myr. These spatial correlations assume that the lowermost mantle structure has not changed over time, which is at odds with mantle flow models that show basal thermochemical structures to be mobile features shaped by cold sinking oceanic lithosphere. Here we investigate the match to the global kimberlite record of stationary seismic

SUBMITTER: Grabreck A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9182341 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature