Abstract. We have investigated a suite of natural diamonds from the
kimberlite pipe of the Changma Kimberlite Belt, Mengyin County, Shandong
Province, China, with the aim of constraining pressures and temperatures of
formation. Here we report the non-destructive investigation of an olivine
inclusion still entrapped within a lithospheric diamond by single-crystal
X-ray diffraction. We were able to refine anisotropically its crystal
structure to R1= 1.42 % using ionized scattering curves; this
allows estimation of the composition of the olivine as
Mg1.82Fe0.18SiO4. This composition corresponds to a
calculated unit-cell volume equal to V= 292.70 Å3 at room
temperature and pressure. We have validated the above-calculated composition
and unit-cell volume by releasing the inclusion from the diamond host,
resulting in a consistent composition calculated using non-destructive
methods of Mg1.84Fe0.16SiO4 and V= 292.80 ± 0.07 Å3. Considering that the unit-cell volume of the olivine still
inside its diamond host is V= 289.7 ± 0.2 Å3, we calculated
a residual pressure Pinc= 1.4 ± 0.1 GPa with respect to the
released crystal and Pinc= 1.3 ± 0.2 GPa with respect to the
volume calculated from the “composition” indirectly retrieved by the
structure refinement under ambient conditions. The two values of Pinc
overlap within experimental uncertainty. We performed Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis on the
diamond host in order to calculate its mantle residence temperature,
Tres, which resulted in a value of 1189 ∘C (for an assumed
diamond age of 3 Ga) and 1218 ∘C (for an age of 1 Ga), with an
average Tres equal to 1204 ± 15 ∘C. Using the most up-to-date pressure–volume–temperature equations of state for
olivine and diamond, the residual pressure Pinc= 1.4 ± 0.1 GPa
and average residence temperature of the diamond host Tres= 1204 ∘C, we retrieved a pressure of entrapment Ptrap= 6.3 ± 0.4 GPa. Using the non-destructive approach and relative Pinc = 1.3 GPa, we obtained a perfectly overlapping Ptrap= 6.2 GPa,
within experimental uncertainty. This entrapment pressure corresponds to
depths of about 190 ± 12 km. These results demonstrate that for
high-quality crystal structure data measured on inclusions still trapped
within diamond hosts, even a non-destructive approach can be used to
calculate the depth of formation of diamond–olivine pairs. In terms of
geological implications, the results from this work show that Changma
diamonds formed under a conductive geotherm lying between 35 and 40 mW m−2, at a depth of about 190 km. This value lies within the recently
reported upper limit of the average depth of formation of worldwide
lithospheric diamonds, which is 175 ± 15 km and is in agreement with
P–T data obtained in the literature from kimberlite xenoliths.