Carbon isotopic ratios and rare-earth element (REE) contents were measured for six Central African carbonados and two Brazilian ones. The 813C values of all the Central African samples and one of the Brazilian samples are from -29.7%o to -24.4%o, which are within the range of organic matters such as petroleum and coal, and are much lower than the typical values for ordinary diamonds of around -5961o. Another Brazilian sample gives diamond-like 813C value of -8.8%o, suggesting that this is actually not a carbonado but an aggregate of ordinary diamond such as bort and ballas. Samples with a larger amount of impurities show higher REE contents and higher light-REE/heavy-REE ratios, implying the existence of a light-REE-enriched mineral, such as florencite, along grain boundaries between diamond crystals. Chondrite normalized REE abundance patterns of the samples are similar to crustal materials such as shales rather than to kimberlites and ordinary diamonds, which are much more light-REE enriched than most of the studied samples. The Brazilian sample with a higher 813C value, however, shows a kimberlite-like REE pattern which is clearly different from that of the other Brazilian sample. From our data, the crustal origin of carbonado is preferable to its genesis in the mantle.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.