KIMBERLITE DIATREMES AND VOLCANOS:

SIMILARITIES
AND DIFFERENCES

CONTENT
(preliminary version)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Geography & Tectonics Geomorphology Channel of eruption Petrology & Microstructure Mineralogy and Mineral resources Volcanology Genesis & Conclusions

Part 1

Geography

& Tectonics

Fact:
Geographical distribution of kimberlites and
volcanoes is different with 100% negative

correlation.
Kimberlites occur within ancient cratons while

volcanoes within young mobile belts.

Ancient cratons and folded belts are the two main tectonic elements of the Earths crust

Kimberlites occur within cratons

(After O.R.Eckstrand et al, 1995, Geology of Canada No. 8, GSC.)

Volcanoes occur within folded belts

Kimberlites vs. volcanoes by region.

North & South Americas

No volcanoes in NWT Canada

No kimberlites in Ring of Fire

No volcanoes in Brazil

Volcanoes (red dots)

Kimberlites

Kimberlites vs. volcanoes by region.

Yakutia, India and Australia
No kimberlites in Ring of Fire

No volcanoes in Yakutia

India

No volcanoes in India

No volcanoes in Australia

Kimberlites Volcanoes (red dots)

Kimberlites vs. volcanoes by region.

Volcanoes (in red)
Iceland

Europe and Africa

Kimberlites
White Sea province

No volcanoes in White Sea province

No kimberlites in Iceland

N.Tanzania volcanoes

N.Tanzania volcanoes W.Tanzania kimberlites

No volcanoes in Southern Africa

Southern Africa

Part 2

Geomorphology

Fact:
Kimberlites and volcanoes create

diametrically opposite topographic forms:

volcanoes positive

kimberlites negative
There are no volcanoes with negative forms,

and there are no kimberlites with positive

forms of relief.

Volcanoes create positive forms of relief (Mt. Mayon, Philippines)

Geomorphology

Kimberlite pipes create negative forms of relief (composite sketch)

(After Dr. A.R.Chakhmouradian

Geomorphology
There are no volcanoes without a cone: Klyuchevskoi volcano (left).

There are no diatremes with a cone: model of kimberlite pipe (right). Red dashed line indicates the same level for volcano and for diatreme: the end of a diatreme is a beginning of a volcano

Ol Doinyo Lengai

Geomorphology
Simultaneous (?) accumulation (volcano) and excavation (pipe), (386 km between them)

Mwadui (kimberlite pipe) Age 41 Ma (C. Jennings, 1990) Depth of crater 400 m (in granites) Crater size = 1.5 x 1.2 km

Kilimanjaro (rhyolite volcano) Age - 40 Ma Height (Kibo) = 5,895 m (in air) Crater size = 2.7 x 1.9 km

Part 3

Channel of eruption

Model of channel of eruption

Volcano has a simple pipe-like vent and a rounded crater filled with homogeneous rock (left)

5034 kimberlite pipe, Canada consists of four lobes

Three-dimensional model of the Misery kimberlite complex

Du Toits Pan pipe consists of dozen of kimberlite rocks with different grade

Kimberlite pipes have a complex inner structure

(previous slide as well)

Kimberlite pipe walls structure

Grooves or striae which appear after mechanical abrasion of the pipe walls by intruded kimberlite could be inclined or even horizontal (C.R.Clement, 1986). That means that kimberlite magma had different directions during its eruption which is impossible for

volcanoes.

Part 4

Petrology

Petrology
Diatremes can be composed with rhyolites,
dacites, andesites, basalts, ultrabasic rocks and carbonatites the whole range of effusive

/ hypabyssal rocks
Volcanoes are filled up with rhyolites, dacites, andesites, basalts and carbonatites. There are

no kimberlite rocks were found in volcanoes

inner structure
Geological contacts between different kimberlites are very graduate. They do not conform to the classic structure of magmatic contacts, which must include zones of endo- and exo-contacts. They rather look like accumulative zones between different portions of the same batch of kimberlite magma.

Classic contact zone between broken and baked siltstone (bottom) and mafic sill with frozen endocontact

Xenoliths in effusive rocks are quite rare, because they were washed away by final batches of ascending lava. There is clear contact reaction rim around xenolith (black arrows)

Xenolith gabbro in basalt. Hawaii. C.Benrley, 2010

Volcaniclastic kimberlite overfilled with xenoliths. There are no contact rims between xenoliths and cold magma

Part 5

Mineralogy

Mineral resources
Diatremes can contain high quality deposits of
the long list of minerals like gold, copper, iron, uranium, diamonds, zinc, lead, etc Volcanoes themselves directly produce mostly breakstone, some perlite, and also some sulphur.

Ol Doinyo Lengai Carbonatite

Volcanology Kilauea Volcano

Part 6

Kilauea Volcano Basalt

Kimberlite should be between them

kimberlite

should be close to Hawaiian and Icelandic types, far from Plinian

Types of volcanoes:

Types of volcanoes and their main parameters

Eruption Type
Plinian Pelean Vesuvian Vulcanian Strombolian

VEI
8 7 5-6 3-4 1-2

Main Rocks
Rhyolites Dacites Andesites RhyolitoBasalt AndesitoBasalt

SiO2 (%)
65 62 59 54 51

Viscosity
Very high High Intermedi ate Moderate Moderate

Eruption Mode
MegaColossal Colossal Paroxysmal Severe Mildly explosive

Volcanic Products
Tephra Tephra Tephra Tephra, minor lava Tephra, minor lava

Plume Height
50 km > 25 km 10-25 km 3-15 km 1-5 km

Tropospheric Injection
Substantial Substantial Substantial Substantial Minor

Hawaiian
Icelandic

0
0

Basalt
Basalt

48
45

Low
Low

Gentle, Effusive
NonExplosive Most peaceful

Lava, very little tephra

Lava, rare tephra

0.1-1 km
< 0.1 km

Negligible
Negligible

Kimberlitic

Close to zero
0-3

PicriteCarbonatite?
Carbonatite

35?

Should be low
Very low

Should be nonexplosive
NonExplosive

Tephra should be rare

Lava, rare tephra

About 0.1 km?

0.01-0.1 km

Negligible?

Carbonatitic (Ol Doinyo)

3-10

Negligible

Volcanic ash cant make a deposit inside its own crater (Natural separation by
size & weight)

wind

tephra

Blocks, no ash
Lapilli Ash, no blocks

Volcanic ash makes deposits a hundreds kilometers away from the crater.

Volcanic ash

Solid, well-rounded kimberlite pellets of the TK- kimberlite, covered by 70 m of granites, 5034N, Canada (left), clearly differ from sharply angular porous pieces of volcanic ash, Brokeoff Volcano, California (right).
Pseudo-pyroclastic TK-kimberlite Volcanic ash

Some important numbers

Kimberlite magma was extremely cold:
below 200 degree (Davidson, 1964) to

400 degree (Dawson, 1980) Volcanic lava has a temperature

between 1000 -1300 degree.

Tephra which was not found among kimberlites

Rotation bomb

Porous bomb

Bread crust bomb

Ribbon bomb

Autoliths which were not found in tephra

Concentriczoned autolith. Dal'naya pipe. Yakutia. Thin section.

Lapillus. Victor-North pyroclastic kimberlite. Canada. B. van Straaten et al.

Autolith with stratified structure in the center and concentric structure around. Maliutka pipe, Yakutia. Slab

Which magic force could keep lapilli in suspended condition and protect them against falling down before the solid supporting matrix was created?

Lapilli (?) unit in the El Guayal KT site. (Salge and Claeys, 2000)

The Natural History Museum, 2000. Thin section.

Kimberlite lapillus
Victor-North pyroclastic kimberlite with completely crystallized groundmass. Ontario, Canada.

Kimberlite autolith
Around - Liquid magma, Fine-grained fully crystallized groundmass of hypabyssal o o rock T aut=T mag o T aut=300
0

B. van Straaten, M. Kopylova, K. Russell, K. Webb, B. Scott Smith

Minerals

Volcanic tephra
Around - Gases/air, Porous glassy groundmass of volcanic rock Volcanic o o Tolap>>T air glass T lap=1000
0

Porous volcanic bomb

Pores

Minerals

Pores

Volcanic lapillus
Around - Gases/air, Porous glassy groundmass of volcanic rock Volcanic o o Tolap>>T air glass 0 T lap=1000

Kimberlite autolith
Around - Liquid magma, Fine-grained fully crystallized groundmass of hypabyssal o o rock T aut =T mag o T aut=3000

Pores

Minerals Minerals

Part 7

Genesis & Conclusions

Genesis.
During the flight in atmosphere volcanic tephra obtained the

hard crust of the frozen surface (bread crust). This crust

has prevented lapilli against their tight junction into solid magmatic rock. Such crust was never observed in kimberlite

rocks.
Kimberlite pellets had never left their original magmatic environment as far as they represent the silicate part of the

initially homogeneous kimberlite magma. These pellets are

cemented by an immiscible carbonatite (Kryvoshlyk, 1976, 2008).

Genesis
1. Volcano was created by eruption of a simple homogeneous magma. 2. Diatreme is a result of eruption of a composite magma, which fragmentation is a product of a liquid immiscibility. Liquid immiscibility is a wide spread natural phenomenon which can be observed by everybody everyday (oil in water).

3. Kimberlite tuff (TK, VK,) is a mixture of picritic melt which was fine-dispersed starting from a molecular level within carbonatitic melt.

Conclusions
1. Natural sequence of volcanic events in modern theories is broken: tephra must be generated first, before lava, and lava must appear later, after tephra. In kimberlite pipes we see lava (HKkimberlite) first and tephra (TK-kimberlite) later. 2. If the HK-kimberlite represents kimberlite lava, so why there are no clear sharp contacts between HK and TK-kimberlites which should represent tephra? The fact is: there are many meters of HKt and TKt kimberlites between TK and HK