Final Report Summary - INDIMEDEA (Inclusions in diamonds: messengers from the deep Earth)
Diamond is one of the most studied natural and synthetic materials, not only due to its peculiar characteristics (e.g. extreme hardness, very high electrical conductivity, very low thermal expansion) but also because it represents the only direct “sampling” to retrieve very deep fragments of our Planet. Diamond can be a taxi-driver for mineral inclusions coming from very deep and very old regions of the Earth (diamonds can be older than 3 billion years). Diamonds and their mineral inclusions are real “open windows” to our planet’s interior and the study of such inclusions is crucial to understand “what happens” at depths between 130 and more than 750-800 km (recent studies indicate they can form even at such depths). Since diamonds are able to keep their inclusions under a protected environment, such minerals are able to provide direct petrological, geochemical, geophysical and mineralogical information about our deep Earth.
INDIMEDEA project (INclusions in DIamond: MEssengers from the Deep EArth; www.indimedea.eu) helped us to discover completely new aspects of diamonds, going from the depth of its formation to the conditions of their crystal growth. Summarizing the scientific results, INDIMEDEA produced 74 international scientific publications, including 3 Nature articles and 1 Science article (with two covers), more than 100 abstracts at conferences, four free software, three prototype instruments, a long series of invited talks all over the world.
Such scientific production provided the following results:
a) We showed for the first time in literature, based on our unprecedented diamond-olivine dataset and at least for Siberian diamonds, that olivine is protogenetic with respect to diamond. This was then confirmed for clinopyroxenes and garnets. Olivine, clinopyroxene and garnet represent more than 60% of all the inclusions in diamonds.
b) We applied, for the first time following a reliable and mathematically correct approach, the elastic-geobarometry to diamond-garnet, diamond-olivine, diamond-kyanite pairs and for super-deep diamonds to the diamond-ferropericlase pair, obtaining significant information about the depth of diamond formation.
c) We determined the thermoelastic properties for mineral phases commonly found in diamond as inclusions. Such internally-consistent database is crucial for elastic-geobarometry.
d) We determined, for the first time, the interface energy between olivine and diamond, demonstrating that diamond “does not want to growth on olivine crystal faces and vice-versa”. Such results can be directly applied to other silicate inclusions in diamonds.
e) INDIMEDEA allowed to study several super-deep diamonds allowing the discovery of hydrous ringwoodite within a diamond indicating that between 525 and 660 km depth, the Earth is hydrous. This was then confirmed studying several other diamonds from all over the world containing other types of inclusions and hydrogen as molecular hydrogen and/or in methane CH4.
INDIMEDEA project (INclusions in DIamond: MEssengers from the Deep EArth; www.indimedea.eu) helped us to discover completely new aspects of diamonds, going from the depth of its formation to the conditions of their crystal growth. Summarizing the scientific results, INDIMEDEA produced 74 international scientific publications, including 3 Nature articles and 1 Science article (with two covers), more than 100 abstracts at conferences, four free software, three prototype instruments, a long series of invited talks all over the world.
Such scientific production provided the following results:
a) We showed for the first time in literature, based on our unprecedented diamond-olivine dataset and at least for Siberian diamonds, that olivine is protogenetic with respect to diamond. This was then confirmed for clinopyroxenes and garnets. Olivine, clinopyroxene and garnet represent more than 60% of all the inclusions in diamonds.
b) We applied, for the first time following a reliable and mathematically correct approach, the elastic-geobarometry to diamond-garnet, diamond-olivine, diamond-kyanite pairs and for super-deep diamonds to the diamond-ferropericlase pair, obtaining significant information about the depth of diamond formation.
c) We determined the thermoelastic properties for mineral phases commonly found in diamond as inclusions. Such internally-consistent database is crucial for elastic-geobarometry.
d) We determined, for the first time, the interface energy between olivine and diamond, demonstrating that diamond “does not want to growth on olivine crystal faces and vice-versa”. Such results can be directly applied to other silicate inclusions in diamonds.
e) INDIMEDEA allowed to study several super-deep diamonds allowing the discovery of hydrous ringwoodite within a diamond indicating that between 525 and 660 km depth, the Earth is hydrous. This was then confirmed studying several other diamonds from all over the world containing other types of inclusions and hydrogen as molecular hydrogen and/or in methane CH4.