The pressures required for diamond and coesite formation far exceed conditions reached by even the deepest present-day orogenic crustal roots. Therefore the occurrence of metamorphosed continental crust containing these minerals requires processes other than crustal thickening to have operated in the past. Here we report the first in situ finding of diamond and coesite, characterized by micro-Raman spectroscopy, in high-pressure granulites otherwise indistinguishable from granulites found associated with garnet peridotite throughout the European Variscides. Our discovery confirms the provenance of Europe's first reliable diamond, the “Bohemian diamond,” found in A.D. 1870, and also represents the first robust evidence for ultrahigh-pressure conditions in a major Variscan crustal rock type. A process of deep continental subduction is required to explain the metamorphic pressures and the granulite–garnet peridotite association, and thus tectonometamorphic models for these rocks involving a deep orogenic crustal root need to be significantly modified.

Volume diffusion and dislocation creep at T ∼ 800 °C led to high finite strain in granulite and orthogneiss of the Ohře crystalline complex (North Bohemian shear zone). Intragranular creep by volume diffusion is indicated by (i) lobate phase boundaries between feldspar and quartz, and (ii) removal of perthite lamellae and precipitation of tiny, aluminium‐rich needles at the margins of K‐feldspar. The striking diffusional‐creep structures imply high interfacial free energy that has been preserved from equilibration as a result of rapid cooling. U–Pb dating of monazite (342 ± 1 Ma) and 40Ar–39Ar dating of muscovite (341 ± 4 Ma) of Kadaň orthogneiss result in a cooling rate of 50 + 25/−17 °C Myr−1. This high value is attributed to collapse‐related ‘elevator‐style’ movements along the North Bohemian shear zone, resulting in the juxtaposition of upper crustal rocks of the Tepla–Barrandian unit against lower crustal rocks of the Erzgebirge crystalline complex.

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