ISSN 1028-334X, Doklady Earth Sciences, 2011, Vol. 439, Part 2, pp. 1175–1178. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2011.
Original Russian Text © N.S. Tychkov, A.M. Agashev, N.P. Pokhilenko, I.S. Bazhan, 2011, published in Doklady Akademii Nauk, 2011, Vol. 439, No. 6, pp. 807–810.
1175
Udachnaya pipe is a unique geological object pre-
senting quite a continuous section of the continental
lithosphere from its roots to the upper crust level.
Xenoliths and xenocrysts of deep-seated rocks, trans-
ferred by kimberlites of this pipe, are fragments of
ancient depleted rocks of the lithosphere mantle and
testify to the superposed processes that occurred at the
time of the kimberlite body formation. All these facts
allow one to consider Udachnaya pipe as a model for
studies of mantle sections in the regions of less infor-
mative kimberlites.
It is known that a general inverse relationship takes
place for a volume fraction of garnet in mantle rocks
and its chromousity (Cr/(Cr + Al)). This trend was
first shown by the example of garnet lherzolites from
the Bohemian massif [8]. However, this relationship is
by no means pronounced and depends on several fac-
tors [2]. For Udachnaya pipe, this relationship was
found for high-temperature deformed lherzolites
(DL) [4].
The authors performed an integrated study of the
xenoliths in the lherzolites of Udachnaya pipe [1, 6].
A sufficient set of suitable data combined with those
from other authors [10] allows one not only to confirm
the presence of the mentioned relationship in the DL
of Udachnaya pipe, but also to calculate first the curve
describing this dependence.
The use of various mineral thermobarometers
shows that the DL are the deepest lithosphere mantle
rocks transferred to the surface. It is thought that they
are products of secondary enrichment of depleted
rocks of the lower lithosphere mantle (dunites and
harzburgites for Udachnaya pipe). The enrichment
occurs resulting from the influence of melts of astheno-
sphere origin (containing no Cr and enriched in Fe and
Ti) against the background of tectonic processes
reflected in the distinctive texture of the rocks [7].
In peridotite minerals, chromium is contained in
garnet, chromite, and, to a lesser degree, in pyroxenes.
Practically no chromite is found in DL [2] because,
resulting from the secondary enrichment process, it
transforms into garnet with the decrease of system chr-
omousity (Cr/(Cr + Al)) [15]. Respectively, this garnet
then contains the bulk of chromium in the DL.
The described dependence of the amount of garnet
in the rock on the garnet chromousity is an inverse
relationship. The presence of the inverse relationship
shows that the chromium content in a given rock does
not increase proportionally to the increase in the
amount of garnet. In the case of formation of new gar-
net owing to secondary enrichment with no introduc-
tion of Cr, the enrichment mechanism should be
described by an equiangular hyperbola (y = a/x),
because the product of the variables in this case is
always constant and equal to а. Thus, the amount of
chromium in the rock is not varied and is always equal
to the chromium content in garnet multiplied by its
volume fraction in the rock. It is seen in Fig. 1 that the
mentioned relationship is described well by the curve
y = a/x with а = 0.39, where x is a garnet chromuosity
(Cr
2
O
3
, wt %), y is the volume fraction of garnet in the
rock, and а is the total amount of chromium. This
model conforms to the above common mechanism of
the formation of high-temperature DL.
According to published data, garnets from the DL
of other regions show a similar character of the rela-
tionship at different chromium contents in rocks: а =
0.36 for Jericho pipe [11], 0.23 for Bluefontain pipe
[9], and 0.17 for peridotites of the Bohemian massif
[8] (Fig. 1). At the same time, if the rocks were initially
characterized by a wide range of chromuosity, the rela-
tionship might be fuzzy.
Xenoliths of mantle rocks give insight into the
lithosphere composition and structure as well as into
the processes of their changing. The data as such may
be obtained by means of studies of mantle rock xenoc-
Estimation of the Refertilization Grade of Lithosphere Roots
by the Chemical Composition of Garnets
from Siberian Kimberlites
N. S. Tychkov, A. M. Agashev,
Corresponding Member of the RAS N. P. Pokhilenko, and I. S. Bazhan
Received April 22, 2011
DOI: 10.1134/S1028334X11080320
Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Siberian
Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
e-mail: tychkovne@gmail.com
GEOCHEMISTRY