What mineral is mined in kimberlite pipes? Diamonds - soot from the pipes of the underworld

Eagle Stone

There is not even a hint of truth in this legend. Scree diamonds rarely have sharp edges capable of cutting glass. Despite its hardness, diamond is not strong enough to survive a fall from a great height without harm. And most importantly: the legend does not answer the question, where does the eagle get diamonds? After all, not every mountain contains scatterings of precious stones...

Where do diamonds come from?

In an effort to get to the natural deposits of the luminiferous mineral, people have undertaken real excavations more than once or twice in search of diamond veins. However, shoveling soil from diamond-bearing river sediments yielded modest carats per cubic meter of waste rock, and did not help in any way answer the question: where do diamonds come from?

Yellow Diamonds of the Orange River

Soon the field was seething with life. Tens of thousands of amateur miners dug a quarry, reseeded the soil, and handed over the found crystals to buyers. The revival of business activity attracted the attention of the authorities: in 1873, the Earl of Kimberley declared the diamond-bearing lands the property of british crown, and gave his name to the mining village.

Rocks that contained diamonds were called kimberlite, and geological formations that gave the world deposits of sparkling natural stone were called kimberlite pipes.

Glass shaped

Kimberlite, the rock that fills this giant well, consists of varying-scale fragments of locally occurring minerals, unevenly distributed in the highly alkaline environment raised from the deep interior of the planet.

Olivine, the transparent variety of which is called chrysotile and is a gemstone, is among kimberlite's most voluminous integral part. Fiery red garnets and layered phlogopites are crystals that are necessarily present in kimberlite massifs.

The kimberlite itself is dark, almost black, and has a pronounced blue or green tint. The crystals of transparent carbon contained in it have a regular diamond-shaped shape and look fresh and new - which sharply contradicts the theories of the genesis of diamonds that were established in the last century...

Where does the kimberlite pipe lead?

Until recently, hypotheses reigned about the formation of a precious mineral at depths from 150 to 600 kilometers. Theoretically, it is there that the temperature and pressure correspond to the parameters of carbon crystallization. However, these theories have little evidence, but their refutations are significant.

Mysteries of kimberlites

Volcanoes “let off steam” where it is easiest for molten rocks to make their way up from the depths: in the transition zones around continental plates, the oceanic crust is both thin (about ten kilometers) and cracked. How does the liquid substance of the mantle manage to break through the most durable layers of the earth's crust and form a kimberlite pipe?

On all continents of the Earth, kimberlite pipes “pierce” - like a nail on a board - the strongest crystalline shields - and often freeze before reaching the surface of several hundred or even tens of meters of loose sedimentary rocks. Why? There is no clear answer.

When talking about kimberlite pipes, geologists use the concept of a volumetric trace of an explosive process. Meanwhile, an explosion - that is, an avalanche-like rapid release of energy - gives completely different consequences. The explosion chamber formed in rocks tends to be spherical - but not a single kimberlite pipe has even a relative similarity to spheroids. This means that the perforation of the earth’s crust during the formation of the kimberlite pipe did not have an explosive nature? How did it go?

It turns out that a kimberlite pipe is a “factory” for the production of diamonds?

Gas needles and hot spots

In approximately the same way, according to Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Professor Alexander Portnov, the formation of a kimberlite pipe occurs. Gas (mainly hydrogen-methane) bubbles collecting in the upper layers of the mantle play main role in the genesis of kimberlite pipes.

The conditions created in the place where the crystalline continental shield is supported by an accumulation of gas are quite sufficient for the formation of a needle-thin (on a planetary scale) puncture, which makes it possible for mantle gases to rise to the surface of the earth's surface.

The pressure of many tens of thousands of atmospheres inherent in such gas accumulations is capable of destroying and pushing apart stone monoliths - at least in some areas. Perforation does not occur simultaneously: the interaction of compressed superheated gas and the rocks of the continental platform is long-term, and for a successful breakthrough of the hydrogen-methane mixture, a combination of several circumstances is required - otherwise the bubble, having wasted energy, can hang in the depths of the bowels as a slowly cooling gas lens.

In the Earth's lithosphere there are so-called “hot spots” - areas of convective transfer of thermal energy from many hundreds of kilometers of planetary depths to the surface layers. The same processes also occur in a heated liquid - so the presence of a convective thermal “fountain” in the semi-liquid body mass of our planet can be compared to jets hot water in a boiling kettle.

The difference, however, is that the surface of the water in the kettle is free, and the liquefied substance of the mantle is covered on top with a thick layer of rock “ice”. But the intensity of heat generation at convection points is such that the energy imparted to the solid crust is sufficient to soften it.

Such “springs” of intraplanetary heat flow for several tens of millions of years. And if the relatively thin oceanic crust is melted right through, then the several times thicker continental crust only partially loses its strength under the influence of heat - but does not lose its integrity. Until a gas bubble appears at the place where it is heated...

Gas needle pierces stone

However, closer to the surface, at a depth of several tens or hundreds of meters, the already significantly weakened in strength, but still voluminous and hot gas flow encounters a zone that resembles (in relation to a crystalline monolith of the continental shield) a porous sponge. Without encountering resistance, the mantle gas expands, “blows through” crushed rocks over a vast area around the upper edge of the kimberlite glass - and dissolves in the planet’s atmosphere.

Traces of such interaction are clearly visible. At a distance of up to half a kilometer from a kimberlite pipe, crystalline minerals undergo changes in chemical composition. As a result, they develop (or are greatly enhanced) natural luminescence.

Apatite, which usually glows yellow in ultraviolet light, acquires a blue glow - and this property is characteristic only of apatites found near a kimberlite pipe. Zircon, which rarely exhibits the ability to luminesce, begins to glow clearly and brightly after contact with mantle gases.

And although the colors of gemstones remain unchanged with increased luminescence, the increase in their brightness in daylight and artificial light does not go unnoticed. Jewelry inserts made from such minerals are more expensive.

The ability to re-emit light also increases in other crystalline minerals located near the upper head of the kimberlite pipe. This phenomenon is explained by the chemical activity of mantle gas and the presence in its composition of such metals as europium, zirconium, and cerium. It is they, being introduced into the structure of crystalline formations, that make dull natural stones glow under the rays of the sun.

But where do diamonds come from in kimberlite?

Moreover: on the surface of stones that have undergone a monstrous transfer from the depths of hell to the level of sedimentary rocks, there are observed characteristic traces. Heated gas flows melt and deform the surface layers of the crystals, and they become covered with specific folds. This kind of “shagreen” is typical of meteorites and turbine blades.

Diamonds, on the other hand, do not bear any traces of external influence - although moving, for example, along with river pebbles, they roll around, losing their natural rhomboid shape. This means that the perfect shape of diamond crystals confirms the hypothesis about their formation directly in the body of a kimberlite pipe!

But how does it all happen? According to geologists. Meanwhile, in the mantle of the planet, graphite has nowhere to come from and is “forbidden” to be present: at such temperatures and pressures, carbon is unstable and cannot take the form of graphite.

Scientists simply forgot that more than half a century ago, successful experiments were carried out in the Soviet Union on the low-temperature synthesis of diamond from methane. Which simply confirms the possibility of diamond formation in a gaseous fluid rising from the mantle to the surface of the planet.

In the process of decreasing gas pressure as it rises to the surface, conditions arise in the forming kimberlite pipe for the “adjacent” of free valence bonds of a carbon atom to other similar atoms. This is how giant carbon molecules are formed, consisting of countless atoms and which we identify as diamonds.

However, conditions favorable for diamond synthesis do not always arise. This is why only 5-10% of kimberlite pipes contain crystalline carbon.

Additional confirmation of this theory comes from studies of the age of minerals found in kimberlite. The age of that famous pipe near the city of Kimberley is 85 million years. And the garnets (pyropes) found in it were formed more than three billion years ago! The Udachnaya pipe (Yakutia) is 425 million years old. Clinopyroxene, which is part of the Udna kimberlite, is one billion one hundred forty-nine million years old. However, the age of the Yakut diamonds exactly matches the ages of the “parent” pipes...

There is a lot of other evidence indicating simultaneous education diamonds and kimberlites filling bottomless “wells”. So hopes for our planet to have a mythical diamond-bearing layer on great depth- at least

In Yakutia, near the city of Mirny, there is the largest diamond quarry in the world by total volume - the Mir kimberlite pipe (the city of Mirny appeared after the discovery of the pipe and was named in its honor). The quarry has a depth of 525 meters and a diameter of 1.2 kilometers.
The formation of a kimberlite pipe occurs during a volcanic eruption, when gases from the bowels of the earth escape through the earth's crust. The shape of such a tube resembles a funnel or glass. A volcanic explosion removes kimberlite from the bowels of the Earth, a rock that sometimes contains diamonds. The breed is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where an 85-carat (16.7 gram) diamond was found in 1871, sparking the Diamond Rush.
On June 13, 1955, geologists searching for a kimberlite pipe in Yakutia saw a tall larch tree whose roots had been exposed by a landslide. The fox dug a deep hole under it. Based on the characteristic bluish color of the soil scattered by the fox, geologists realized that it was kimberlite. A coded radiogram was immediately sent to Moscow: “We lit the peace pipe, the tobacco is excellent.” Soon after 2800 km. off-road, convoys of vehicles flocked to the site of the discovery of the kimberlite pipe. The working village of Mirny grew up around the diamond deposit; now it is a city with a population of 36 thousand people.

The development of the field took place in extremely difficult climatic conditions. To break through the permafrost, it had to be blown up with dynamite. In the 1960s, 2 kg were already produced here. diamonds per year, of which 20% were of jewelry quality and, after cutting and turning into diamonds, could be supplied to a jewelry salon. The remaining 80% of diamonds were used for industrial purposes. The South African company De Beers was concerned about the rapid development of Mir, which was forced to buy Soviet diamonds in order to control prices on the world market. The management of De Beers agreed on the arrival of its delegation in Mirny. The leadership of the USSR agreed to this on the condition that Soviet specialists would visit diamond quarries in South Africa. A De Beers delegation arrived in Moscow in 1976 to fly to Mirny, but the South African guests were deliberately delayed by endless meetings and banquets in Moscow, so when the delegation finally reached Mirny, they had only 20 minutes to inspect the quarry. However, South African experts were still amazed by what they saw, for example, by the fact that the Russians did not use water when processing ore. Although this is understandable: after all, 7 months a year in Mirny there is sub-zero temperature and therefore the use of water is simply impossible.
Between 1957 and 2001, the Mir quarry produced $17 billion worth of diamonds. Over the years, the quarry expanded so much that trucks had to travel 8 km along a spiral road. from bottom to surface. The Russian company ALROSA, which owns the Mir quarry, stopped open-pit ore mining in 2001 because... this method has become dangerous and ineffective. Scientists have found that diamonds lie at a depth of more than 1 km, and at such a depth, it is not a quarry that is suitable for mining, but an underground mine, which, according to the plan, will reach its design capacity of one million tons of ore per year already in 2012. In total, the development of the field is planned for another 34 years.
Helicopters are strictly prohibited from flying over the quarry, because a huge funnel sucks aircraft into itself. High walls quarries are fraught with danger not only for helicopters: there is a threat of landslides, and one day the quarry may absorb adjacent, including built-up, territories. Scientists are thinking about a project for an eco-city in a now empty huge pit. The head of the Moscow architectural bureau Nikolai Lyutomsky talks about his plans: “The main part of the project is a huge concrete structure, which will become a kind of “plug” for the former quarry and will burst it from the inside. On top of the pit will be covered with a translucent dome on which solar panels will be installed. Climate Yakutia is harsh, but there is a lot there clear days and the batteries will be able to generate about 200 MW of electricity, which should more than meet the needs of the future city. In addition, you can use the heat of the Earth. In winter in Mirny the air cools to –60°C, but at a depth below 150 meters (that is, below permafrost) the ground temperature is positive, which adds energy efficiency to the project. The space of the city is proposed to be divided into three tiers: the lower one - for growing agricultural products (the so-called vertical farm), the middle one - a forest park zone that purifies the air, and the upper one for the permanent residence of people, which has a residential function and serves to house administrative and socio-cultural buildings and structures. Total area cities will be 3 million. square meters, and up to 10,000 people will be able to live here - tourists, service personnel and farm workers."

To the number amazing phenomena nature can certainly be attributed to periodically opening up in different places globe holes.

1.Kimberlite pipe "Mir" (Mir diamond pipe), Yakutia.

The Mir kimberlite pipe is a quarry located in the city of Mirny, Yakutia. The quarry has a depth of 525 m and a diameter of 1.2 km, and is one of the largest quarries in the world. Mining of diamond-bearing kimberlite ore ceased in June 2001. Currently, an underground mine of the same name is being built on board the quarry to develop the remaining sub-quarry reserves, the extraction of which by open-pit mining is unprofitable.

The world's largest diamond quarry is amazing.

2.Kimberlite pipe " Big hole" , South Africa.

The Big Hole is a huge inactive diamond mine in the city of Kimberley (South Africa). It is believed that this largest quarry, developed by people without the use of technology. Currently it is the main attraction of the city of Kimberley.

From 1866 to 1914, approximately 50,000 miners dug the mine using picks and shovels, producing 2,722 tons of diamonds (14.5 million carats). During the development of the quarry, 22.5 million tons of soil were extracted. It was here that such famous diamonds as "De Beers" (428.5 carats), bluish-white "Porter-Rhodes" (150 carats), orange-yellow " Tiffany" (128.5 carats). Currently, this diamond deposit has been exhausted. The area of ​​the “Big Hole” is 17 hectares. Its diameter is 1.6 km. The hole was dug to a depth of 240 meters, but was then filled with waste rock to a depth of 215 meters, currently the bottom of the hole is filled with water, its depth is 40 meters.

At the site of the mine previously (about 70 - 130 million years ago) there was a volcano. Almost a hundred years ago - in 1914, developments in “ big hole” were discontinued, but the gaping mouth of the pipe remains to this day and now serves only as a tourist attraction, serving as a museum. And... it starts to create problems. In particular, there was a serious danger of collapse not only of its edges, but also of the roads built in its immediate vicinity. South African road services have long banned the passage of heavy freight vehicles in these places, and now they strongly recommend that all other drivers avoid driving along Bultfontein Road in the Big Hole area. The authorities are going to completely block the dangerous section of the road. And the world's largest diamond company, De Beers, which owned this mine since 1888, did not find anything better than to get rid of it by putting it up for sale.

3. Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah.

The largest active open-pit mine in the world, copper mining began in 1863 and is still ongoing. About a kilometer deep and three and a half kilometers wide.

It is the world's largest anthropogenic formation (excavated by humans). It is a mine whose development is carried out using an open pit method.

As of 2008, it measures 0.75 miles (1.2 km) deep, 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and covers an area of ​​1,900 acres (7.7 sq. km).

The ore was first discovered in 1850, and quarrying began in 1863, which continues to this day.

Currently, the quarry employs 1,400 people who extract 450,000 tons (408 thousand tons) of rock daily. The ore is loaded into 64 large dump trucks, which are capable of transporting 231 tons of ore, these trucks cost about $3 million each.

4. Diavik Quarry, Canada. Diamonds are mined.

The Canadian Diavik quarry is perhaps one of the youngest (in terms of development) diamond kimberlite pipes. It was first explored only in 1992, the infrastructure was created by 2001, and diamond mining began in January 2003. The mine is expected to last from 16 to 22 years.
The place where it emerges from the surface of the earth is unique in itself. Firstly, this is not one, but three pipes formed on the island of Las de Gras, approximately 220 km south of the Arctic Circle, off the coast of Canada. Since the hole is huge, and the island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is small, only 20 km²

and in a short time, the Diavik diamond mine became one of the most important components of the Canadian economy. Up to 8 million carats (1,600 kg) of diamonds are mined from this deposit per year. An airfield was built on one of its neighboring islands, capable of receiving even huge Boeings. In June 2007, a consortium of seven mining companies announced their intention to sponsor environmental studies and begin construction of a major reception port on Canada's North Shore. cargo ships with a displacement of up to 25,000 tons, as well as 211 km of access road that will connect the port with the consortium’s factories. This means that the hole in the ocean will grow and deepen.

5. Great Blue Hole, Belize.

The world famous Great Blue Hole blue hole”) is the main attraction of picturesque, ecologically perfectly clean Belize (formerly British Honduras) - a state in Central America, on the Yucatan Peninsula. No, this time it is not a kimberlite pipe. It is not diamonds that are “mined” from it, but tourists - diving enthusiasts from all over the world, thanks to which it feeds the country no worse than a diamond pipe. Probably, it would be better to call it not “Blue Hole”, but “Blue Dream”, since this can only be seen in dreams or in a dream. This is a true masterpiece, a miracle of nature - a perfectly round, twilight blue spot in the middle Caribbean Sea, surrounded by a lace bib of the Lighthouse Reef atol.

View from space!

Width 400 meters, depth 145 - 160 meters.

It’s like they’re swimming over an abyss...

6. Drainage hole in the reservoir of the Monticello Dam.

Big man-made hole located in Northern California, USA. But this is not just a hole. The drainage hole in the Monticello Dam reservoir is the largest spillway in the world! It was built about 55 years ago. This funnel-shaped exit is simply irreplaceable here. It allows you to quickly discharge excess water from the tank when its level exceeds the permissible limit. A kind of safety valve.

Visually, the funnel looks like a giant concrete pipe. It is capable of passing through itself as much as 1370 cubic meters per second. m of water! The depth of this hole is about 21 m. From top to bottom it has the shape of a cone, the diameter of which at the top reaches almost 22 m, and at the bottom it narrows to 9 m and comes out on the other side of the dam, removing excess water when the reservoir overflows. The distance from the pipe to the exit point, which is located slightly to the south, is approximately 700 feet (about 200 m).

7. Karst sinkhole in Guatemala.

A giant funnel with a depth of 150 and a diameter of 20 meters. Called groundwater and rain. During the formation of the sinkhole, several people died and a dozen houses were destroyed. According to local residents, from about the beginning of February, soil movements were felt in the area of ​​​​the future tragedy, and a muffled rumble was heard from underground.

Non-metallic and gas minerals, components of kimberlite pipes
Diamonds and crystalline carbon are a product of the extraction of kimberlite components
Hidden, invisible and disguised as other types of deposits, kimberlites
Prevention of violations in fields and hazardous industries

• Download video - holes in the ground, dangerous places, 2 scientific videos, 63.8 MB, download in rar archive
• Download video - technical explosions on kimberlites, 4 scientific videos, 257 MB, download in rar archive
• Download video - "Belaz" and equipment on kimberlites, 8 scientific videos, 409 MB, download in rar archive
• Download video - kimberlites "InGOK", "Udachnaya", etc., 17 scientific videos, 552 MB, download in rar archive
• Download video - kimberlite "Phemiston Open" Australia, 9 scientific videos, 451 MB, download in rar archive

Non-metallic minerals. Diamond is a non-metallic kimberlite mineral, insoluble in acids, in alkalis, and therefore in aggressive conditions. It conducts heat well and conducts electricity poorly. The density of diamond is 3.513 g/cm3, the melting point is 3700-4000 o C, the combustion temperature in air is 850-1000 o C. When heated to 1200-1500 o C without access to air (oxygen), diamond turns into graphite. In impactites and meteorites, a rare fine-crystalline hexagonal variety of diamond is known - lonsdaleite, which is close to it in its properties. Diamond can occur in the form of crystals and aggregates. The most common crystal shapes are octahedra and rhombic dodecahedrons; crystalline aggregates are most often micrograined and radial. Spinel. Diamonds (

And this is him, the “jewelry” diamond- "dry" element tailings dumps"(withdrawal)
In the photo, uranium (black) is indicated by an arrow in gray-green-blue kimberlite

For those who want to feel true jewelers need to find diamond(in kimberlite) to gouging from it, according to cleavage (and not a plate of diamond after being hit with a hammer), it was a cube of at least 15 x 15 x 15 mm- jewelry raw materials and a licensed type of activity for its supply to cutting specialists. There are various and all sorts of tricks of scammers “from diamonds” - “a lot and in carats” (flat), “it’s whole and stolen at the mining and processing plant” (tailing dump), “we haven’t seen it”, “I want a lot of money” ( large photo"PC desktop wallpaper" on the Internet with a "tunnel" type microscope - an innovation of the 21st century), viewing stone from waste through a magnifying glass, lens, microscope, etc.

The red component of kimberlite is ruby, the blue is safpyre, the green is demantoid (bottom, not olivine)

If Uranus gives kimberlites blue color (such as labradorite of Ukraine, Zhytomyr region, Volodarsk-Volyn pegmatites), bitumen(asphalt, oil, graphite in the form of pegmatites) - black color (carbonate, kimberlite “sticky”), then green demantoids from deep dike kimberlites (feldspar and other plutonites and sill-dykes of volcanism) give kimberlite green color - painted demantoids. This is the mystery of mixer colors kimberlites.

Gold imparts kimberlite pigments yellow color (often, since the beginning of 2010, mixed into non-technological paving slabs without a hot cycle and vibratory rammer, separation of fractions, cracks in diamond kimberlite in winter, not steamed). Brown greenish-golden - not brick-burgundy color of the lithosphere gives to kimberlites copper, And green- dyke outlet demantoid. Not even asphalt pigment - it washes out completely.

Graphic model of kimberlite pipes. 1 - tuffs of a volcanic cone; 2 - crater sediments; 3 - explosive kimberlite breccias (agglomerates, tuffs); 4 - intrusive breccias and kimberlites; 5 - rocks of the Karoo system: a - basic lavas, b - shales, sandstones, c - dolerites; 6 - Ventesdorp system: a - andesitic lavas, b-conglomerates, quartzites; 7 - Primary system: a - shales, b - granite gneiss; 8 - system boundaries; 9 - modern surface of pipes and sills (dykes). Parts of the tubes: I - crater; II - diatreme, III - channel.

IN total mass more rough diamonds 99,3% accounts for the share of very expensive and valuable technical diamonds, among which there are “bort”, “ballas”, carbonado and congo. "Board" - small irregular crystals and intergrowths (stick to the wash-off foam in the enrichment cycles of uranium mining and processing plants). “Ballas” are spherical fine-grained aggregates with a shell that is harder than the core (in the jargon of mining and processing plants - “ballast”).

Carbonado- fine-grained, porous aggregates of black, gray or greenish colors (expensive - a very valuable type of diamond). Congo - small diamonds (fill from the drying step), suitable as an abrasive material (expensive). This - not "tails"(not "tailings dump") of mining and processing plants.

Small grains of industrial diamonds are obtained graphite(native carbon) at high temperatures and pressures in the presence of metal catalysts. Synthetic diamonds have a number of typomorphic properties that reliably identify them. In particular, they contain impurities of iron and nickel. Diamond crystals often contain solid inclusions of olivine, ilmenite, pyrope, graphite and other minerals. In addition, impurities of water, hydrogen, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen, gas-liquid inclusions. There are nitrogen atmospheric (0.25% N2) and nitrogen-free vacuum (up to 0.001% N2) kimberlite diamonds, which differ in properties.

In nature, the formation of sublimating gas diamonds is closely related to the products of platform magmatism - kimberlites and lamproites, which form the so-called tornado-shaped (tornado-like) tubes - cone-shaped, tapering downward or outward drilling bodies of round, elliptical, and more complex shape, traced to a significant depth (up to 2 km or more) among the rocks of the platform cover and crystalline formations of the basement. They may have an entrance (wide) and an exit (narrow, drilling like a tornado).

Using the example of the most thoroughly studied South African kimberlite pipes in their generalized section are distinguished into crater, diatreme and channel parts (center). The crater parts (in the jargon of "Mordor") are made of fragmental material that came after the kimberlite pipe came out from its sides. Diatreme parts, composed of kimberlites of several generations and their tuffs, are characterized by an abundance of fragments of a wide variety of rocks (tornado-type mixer). Channel parts are formed by massive or fluid (gas) kimberlites with distinct hornfelsing in exocontacts (burst of intrusion and effusion of gases at the exit).

A tornado-like phenomenon in the atmosphere (tornado), simulating the escape of gas through a “round” lid
download tornado palettes developed by the author

Kimberlite quarry "Gvardeyskaya Mine"(Krivoy Rog, Ukraine). Operating and abandoned (due to lack of expertise) facilities are mixed with each other, enterprises went bankrupt in 2014 due to the lack of competent specialists. An inverted round crater (marked separately) is visible, similar to the emergence of an underground “solid” tornado (tornado in earth's crust). Exit location natural gas methane, 2014

A round hole in the ground is the result of a breakdown of a gas tornado and the release of natural methane gas to the surface
You can see the localized surroundings of the round “lid” torn out by an underground tornado (drilling into the rock)
A drilling meteorite could have been thrown out from such a round crater (the exit of an underground tornado)

The structure of the tunnel cavity in the form of a tornado trunk - a bending tornado in a PC computer working out by the author
For those interested in mixing kimberlites - download tornado palettes in the author's elaboration

One of the ventilation shafts of the metro in Kharkov (Ukraine) - the release of kimberlite gases

And now the answer to one of the main ones mysteries of modern diggers- what kind of man-made construct is this in the photo and why is it needed. This is the design they put in cultural city on gas outlets kimberlite tornado by type mines "Gvardeiskaya"(2014). The gas seal does not hold water, on ventilation valves (forced ventilation of subway tunnels) without additional pump water pumps - they are placed separately on concrete channels under the railway tracks to drain water from the kimberlite into the sewer system ("storm sewer"). Some of the grilles on the ventilation “kiosk” were stolen by fugitive looters, sold for scrap metal and, probably, soaked.

Under the ventilation shaft (top) there is a shaft leading down, very deep - about 40 m, with a metal staircase structure. Huge airplanes are placed below fans. VO (axial fan) ventilates subway tunnels; it looks like an airplane turbine (that’s right - they are airplanes).

This is a vertical shaft round shape, along which the night diggers went down into the tunnels

This is for comparison - kimberlite failure in Kimberley, South Africa, South Africa(walking is dangerous)

This is another subway ventilation shaft. This shaft, unlike the previous one, is made of cast iron tubes, the depth of the tunnels in it is an order of magnitude smaller (not deep). The bottom of the mine is flooded (under the pumps). A typical mistake, the subway is not a bomb shelter (although it can be used) - gases and water are eliminated. For comparison, a natural round hole in the flooded kimberlite of Kimberley, South Africa (South Africa) is shown.

Installation of a relatively hermetic partition door in the path of possible karst waters
The hermetic seals (a safe-type door) are hospitably open. In case of danger, the pressure doors are closed

For comparison, unmined and flooded karst-type kimberlite (mine and tunnel)
Currently, the bottom of the kimberlite in Kimberley (South Africa) is filled with water, its depth is 40 m

These doors in the metro were closed - the seal was “safely” frozen into the winter ice

Ice on the floor and ceiling of subway tunnels in winter - karst-type water freezing

The ceiling of the Udachny kimberlite tunnel (Russian Federation) for comparison - potassium karst stalactites

Filter-ventilation unit(air works, kimberlite gases inside the earth's crust and rocks). This is a special structure that connects the horizontal subway tunnels and the vertical ventilation shaft (connection). The hermetic doors on the sides are hermetically closed (protection from possible gases and kimberlite explosions) and the air passes through the UZS (unified protective section). Ice stalagmites of the karst type (karst water oozes from the ground) grow in unheated subway tunnels in winter.

Diggers went into the mines (vertical) and tunnels (horizontal) in winter, when the water on the floor froze, and there are stalactites and stalagmites formed from ice (like tree mushrooms and eschenite stones). The type of excavation of the mine-tunnel facilities of the Kharkov metro is directly in the city of Almaden, Spain, south-west of continental Europe (the most competent in planning and the lowest in terms of accident rate - " Almadensky type").

And this is a direct original for tunneling work - scheme excavation of mines and tunnels of red cinnabar deposits in Almaden, Spain(scheme). In the building Mining school The town of Almaden is home to a mining history museum. It contains materials on the history of mines, mining, equipment models, tools, samples of rocks and minerals, and excavations. And the flooding of the mines is visible, and the methods have not changed much (they are relevant). Original. In the jargon of tunnellers, this scheme of work is called “testosterone” ( Spanish used in the penetration diagram).

These are basic Almaden (Spanish)(not Khaidarkan) mine excavation schemes well like - You won't believe your eyes, but this is - Almaden, Spain, arid southwestern Europe (Euroschengen). We were looking for water in a very dry place - they found mercury and cinnabar. The drought in Almaden and Spain in 2014 was even described on the Internet.

This is special gate With top of the mine(that’s how they put it) to lift cinnabar ore from the mine, Almaden, Spain, Euroshengen, originally made in the shape of an “umbrella” mushroom cap - protects the well and mine from dust, dirt and flooding from rain from above. The main difference between mines and quarries is protection from flooding by rainwater and precipitation from above (one level of possible flooding is cut off - precipitation). Flooding closed vertical shafts and horizontal tunnels are carried out only according to karst tipu - from the ground (" Khaidarkan").

This - spanish closed penetration type with separately installed let's finish(a system of vertical and horizontal mines and tunnels - excavation), as well as kimberlite careers open type(dehydrated) in Kimberley (South Africa). People don’t believe their eyes, but, for example, in Ukraine, water sources are open, not just rivers and ponds and springs (even under canopy and karsts like “Kharkovskaya-1”, metro station “Botanical Garden”).

City Madrid(capital of Spain) - summer 2010 conference on geology and the history of geology and mining and tunneling, and the organizers tried to show historical places where tourists do not have time to get to (the place of hard labor - the city of Almaden). The meetings took place in a hall with a portrait of the Spanish King Charles III (founder of the School of Mines) and colored symbols on the walls ( coat of arms of Spain- two hammers and a framed crown, up).

Mercury- that in the city of Almaden (Spain) it was mistakenly accepted that there was a drought for water, dug well. In the photo below is the figure of St. Barbara - the Catholic Spanish patroness of geologists, miners, etc. The coat of arms is Spanish. You should not drink mercury - it is an aphrodisiac for women and severe “indigestion” for men. It is collected in horizontal tunneling tunnels into cylinders of 30 kg ( were looking for water for the King of Spain and found cinnabar). The water in the mines and tunnels is of the karst type, there is underground flooding with groundwater of different levels (very dangerous, karsts). Even if water is found in karst tunnels, you can’t just drink it without special analysis. There is water in the mine.

Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Professor A. PORTNOV.

From kimberlite pipes alone (not counting alluvial deposits) on Earth, up to 20 tons of industrial and jewelry diamonds are mined annually - worth 6-7 billion dollars. The lives of tens of millions of people are in one way or another connected with the search, extraction, processing, and sale of diamonds. Diamonds (diamonds) are not only precious jewelry. The use of diamond tools more than doubles the economic potential of any developed country. Diamonds have been mined for many centuries. And to a simple question: how are they formed in nature? - there is still no answer. It is generally accepted that diamonds crystallized deep in the bowels of the Earth - in the mantle, and the so-called kimberlite "explosion tubes" carry them to the surface of the planet. In this explanation, almost everything is incomprehensible: both the mechanism of diamond formation and the reasons for the appearance of kimberlite pipes, rooted in the unknown depths of the Earth. The hypothesis proposed here is based on the facts accumulated by modern geology and reveals new ways to solve these issues.

Kimberlite pipe "Mir", western Yakutia. A huge cone filled with diamond-bearing rock that broke out of the mantle through a narrow “puncture” under very high pressure of hot gas.

Next to the rounded deep-seated minerals, the diamond crystal especially stands out and attracts attention with its perfectly regular shapes.

Kimberlites are mantle rocks with numerous inclusions of pebbles - deep-seated minerals, rounded by gas flows.

The mineral apatite, rounded by mantle gases, is almost no different in appearance from ordinary river pebbles.

Many types of deep pebbles, although they are very similar to ordinary ones, have a special rough surface - “shagreen”. This photo shows a pebble of the titanium mineral ilmenite with a shagreen surface.

“Shagreen” is also characteristic of olivine grains, one of the main minerals of the mantle.

At high magnification (2000 times) it is clear that “shagreen” is a special corrosive surface. It is formed when exposed to hot gas.

Three mysteries of kimberlites

Thousands of scientific articles are devoted to diamonds and diamondiferous rocks of the mantle - kimberlites. But they do not answer the three main mysteries of primary diamond deposits. First: why are kimberlite pipes located only on ancient shields and platforms - the most stable and stable blocks of the earth's crust? What monstrous forces could force the heavy rocks of the Earth's mantle, seemingly contrary to Archimedes' law, to rush upward and break through a layer tens of kilometers thick of lighter rocks - basalts, granites, sedimentary ones? And why do kimberlite pipes “pierce” the thick 40-kilometer crust of platforms, and not the much thinner 10-kilometer crust of the ocean floor or transition zone - at the border of continents with oceans, where deep faults Are there hundreds of smoking volcanoes and lava flows freely to the surface? Geologists have no answer to this question.

The next mystery is the amazing shape of kimberlite pipes. After all, in fact, they do not look like “pipes”, but rather like champagne glasses: a cone on a thin stem that goes to great depths. Geologists have been habitually calling them “explosion tubes” for a hundred years now, without thinking about how absurd this phrase is. After all, explosions in homogeneous environment They form not tubes at all, but spheres. Numerous so-called “camouflage chambers” have now been drilled - voids remaining after powerful underground nuclear explosions. All these cameras are spherical in shape. But kimberlite cone pipes also exist! And, apparently, the secret of the birth of diamonds is connected with their formation. How did they come about? There is no answer to this question yet.

The third mystery concerns the unusual shape of mineral grains in kimberlite rocks. It is known that the minerals that crystallize first from molten magma always form well-cut crystals. These are apatite, garnet, zircon, olivine, ilmenite. They are also widespread in kimberlites, but for some reason they do not have crystalline edges, the grains are rounded and resemble rounded river pebbles in shape. Geologists are trying to explain this mysterious feature by saying that the minerals were melted by hot magma. But melting, as is known, leads to the transformation of crystalline minerals into amorphous glass, devoid of a crystalline structure. However, no one was able to detect any traces of “vitrification” or loss of crystalline structure in these rounded grains.

At the same time, diamond crystals, which, according to current concepts, originated in the mantle and were carried out in finished form along with kimberlite magma from a depth of 150 to 600 kilometers, are presented at processing plants as whole mountains of sparkling, ideally shaped octahedra with sharp edges, which are so convenient for cutting glass! These sharp edges have been preserved despite the fragility of diamond crystals and their ability to easily split along certain planes. It turns out that diamond crystals, having gone through a long and thorny path along with molten magma, look as if they had just come off a factory assembly line. And the crystals of zircon, apatite and other minerals (it is believed that they separated from the melt directly in the tube) lost their edges. How to explain such a paradox?

Kimberlite pipes - "chimneys" of the mantle

Extensive analytical and experimental material allowed the author to construct a new model for the formation of kimberlite pipes and diamonds. It explains many of the geological mysteries associated with these ultra-deep formations. The model is based on extensive information about the gaseous, predominantly hydrogen-methane, “exhalation” of the mantle, and possibly the Earth’s core.

In my opinion, kimberlite pipes are traces of a “puncture” of the lithosphere by huge gas bubbles rising from the mantle. Such a bubble, trying to break out to the surface of the Earth, makes a thin, “needle-like” exit through the hard crystalline rocks of the platform’s foundation, and only then an expansion is formed in the soft sedimentary rocks - a “glass”. Deep gas pushes them apart with terrible pressure of tens of thousands of atmospheres, transmitted from the mantle to top part earth's crust. The gas flowing through the “needle” puncture is triggered in approximately the same way as the pressure transmitted through the tubes of the oil hydraulic drives of a car.

The confinement of kimberlites specifically to platforms is explained by the fact that they are almost gas-tight. Therefore, tiny gas bubbles scattered in the rocks accumulate under them, which combine into large bubbles of hydrogen-methane composition. At a certain critical volume, such a bubble begins to gradually “float”, that is, penetrate into the structure of the platform and rise to the surface of the planet.

The platforms look like saucers floating in an aquarium, with air bubbles rising from the bottom. The bubbles flow around the saucer, but some of the gas accumulates under its bottom. Gas rises from the mantle, as evidenced by the fact that helium here is sharply enriched in the light, deep-seated isotope of helium. But in the underground gases of platforms there is a thousand times less such helium than in the gases of volcanoes. Consequently, the platforms are a dense “plug” for mantle gases.

Scattered mantle gas is collected into large bubbles due to the powerful influence of so-called hot spots (geologists learned about their existence relatively recently) - deep “nozzles” burning the lithosphere from the inside. For example, one of these modern hot spots burned through the thin crust of the earth in Pacific Ocean, and then volcanoes arose Hawaiian Islands. The same “nozzle” worked in the same place 70 million years ago and also left its mark on the ocean floor - a “seam” of solidified basaltic lava, a giant underwater Imperial Ridge stretching from the Aleutian Islands to the Hawaiian Islands.

Volcanoes are like active “chimneys” of the Earth. They work properly if there are no “dampers” in the way of the gases emitted by them. Most often, moving platforms become such obstacles. They are usually so powerful that hot spot there is not enough energy to burn it through. But it is enough to melt rocks at depth and collect the gases scattered in them into huge bubbles.

As you know, tiny droplets of fat in milk do not float until the energy of the butter churn produces a large enough lump of butter. So it is here. When large gas bubbles form under the platforms, Archimedes' principle comes into force. Density gas mixture(hydrogen-methane) even at mantle pressure there will be less density water. But the density of the mantle itself is more than three times the density of water. This means that the lifting force of a bubble with a volume of 1 cubic kilometer will be 2.5 billion tons! And besides, this gas is heated to 600-800 o C.

The fact that the kimberlite pipes at depth are narrowed into a thin stem suggests that the entire enormous lifting force of the gas was applied to a very small area. At the same time, tens of kilometers of rocks were as if pierced by a giant needle. This formed a thin channel 100-150 kilometers long. The gas bubble was squeezed up along it until it penetrated into the soft rocks of the platform’s sedimentary cover. We can say that the mantle, as it were, “inserts an enema” into the thick earth’s crust: soft sedimentary rocks move apart, forming a cone of a kimberlite pipe.

Floating upward, the gas bubble creates a zone in its tail part low pressure. Mantle rocks recrystallized under the influence of gas are crushed and rush into this zone, into a thin breakdown. The gas drags the mantle rocks with it. As if in a giant sandblasting machine, grains of minerals rush in the hellish convection currents of a gas mixture that geologists call fluid. In this case, the crystals are peeled off, lose their crystalline edges and turn into deep pebbles of a gas flow, almost indistinguishable from ordinary river pebbles.

But there are still differences - they are clearly visible under a microscope. Under the influence of hot gas jets, a special surface of kimberlite minerals is created. Experts call it "shagreen". When magnified thousands of times, it looks like a microporous corrosion structure. The surface of meteorites or gas turbine blades is approximately the same.

Diamonds - "soot" of the mantle

But why are the diamond crystals mined in kimberlite pipes so beautifully cut? After all, it is believed that magma pulled them out of the “stone caves” of the mantle and dragged them for more than a hundred kilometers!.. Of course, diamond is the hardest mineral, but even this cannot save it. After all, it is known that placer diamonds are rounded and chipped, since this mineral is quite fragile.

Countless textbooks show diamond-graphite equilibrium diagrams and say that diamond arises from graphite. But for some reason no one asked the question: where does graphite come from in the mantle?.. After all, it is unstable there, and it is called a “forbidden” mineral for mantle conditions. Carbides are a different matter. They are stable here: carbides of iron, phosphorus, silicon, nitrogen, hydrogen. Hydrogen carbide is a gas, ordinary methane, it is mobile and easily concentrated in deep fluid.

At one time, geologists did not attach importance to the remarkable discovery of the Soviet physicist B. Deryagin, who back in 1969 synthesized diamond from methane and, what is very important, at a pressure even below atmospheric. Even then, this discovery should have radically changed the existing ideas about diamond as a mineral that necessarily crystallizes from melts and at high pressures. B. Deryagin's data allowed me to consider the possibility of diamond crystallization from a fluid, a gas mixture in the C-H-O system.

It turns out that in such a fluid, oxygen at ultra-high mantle pressure loses its oxidizing properties and does not even oxidize hydrogen. But when the gas rises upward, when a kimberlite pipe is formed, the pressure drops. It is enough to reduce the pressure 10 times - from 50 to 5 kilobars - for the activity of oxygen to increase a million times. And then it instantly combines with hydrogen and methane. Simply put, the gas spontaneously ignites - a furious fire breaks out in an underground pipe.

The consequences of such an underground “fire” depend on the ratio of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in the fluid. If there is not too much oxygen, it will remove only hydrogen from the methane molecule (CH 4). The resulting water vapor will be absorbed by mineral dust and form serpentinite, the most characteristic mineral of kimberlites. Carbon, remaining “lonely”, at a pressure of thousands of atmospheres and a temperature of about 1000 o C, will close with unsaturated valence bonds “on itself” and form a giant molecule of pure carbon - a diamond! In practice, such a favorable combination of components in a gas mixture is rare: only five percent of kimberlite pipes are diamond-bearing.

More often it happens that there is either too much oxygen to form a diamond, or not enough. In the first case, carbon will burn and turn into gases - oxides: CO or CO 2. Then barren kimberlites appear. They are characterized by increased magnetism because they contain iron oxide - magnetite. There was a lot of oxygen, and it “snatched” the iron from the silicates. If there is a deficiency of oxygen or methane, only water vapor will appear, and it will be absorbed by serpentinite. It turns out that diamond appears as a product of spontaneous underground combustion of carbonaceous fluid. Diamonds are analogues of ash or soot settled in the “chimneys” of the mantle!

The combustion of methane increases the activity of oxygen and affects the isotopic composition of carbon and nitrogen that make up diamonds, since heavy isotopes are concentrated in the oxidizing environment.

Growing diamond crystals capture numerous dust inclusions from the gas - tiny grains of minerals from the surrounding rocks. The age of these mineral inclusions sometimes coincides with the geological age of kimberlite pipes, but more often the inclusions turn out to be much older. For example, in the diamonds of the famous Kimberley pipe (South Africa), which penetrated into the surrounding rocks 85 million years ago, the age of pyrope garnet inclusions (determined by the samarium-neodymium method) is 3200 million years. In the Yakut Udachnaya pipe, which broke through the surrounding rocks 425 million years ago, the age of clinopyroxene mineral inclusions (determined by the potassium-argon method) is 1149 million years.

Based on such data, geologists usually conclude that diamonds crystallized in the mantle, perhaps billions of years ago, and then were thrown to the surface of the Earth by an explosion. In my opinion, the inclusions in the diamonds were captured by growing crystals from the "dust" of the gas flow surrounding them.

In recent years, sophisticated methods of analysis have made it possible to identify native metals among inclusions in diamonds - iron, nickel, chromium, silver, as well as nickel and iron sulfides. How did they get into diamonds? In my opinion, all these metals were reduced from deep rock minerals - silicates with high content of iron, nickel, silver and oxides with high chromium content - by such powerful reducing agents as hydrogen and CO, and deep hydrogen sulfide turned some of these metals into sulfides. The diamond "armor" preserved this unstable sulfide-metal dust in crystals.

For a long time, sharp “dry” contacts of kimberlite pipes with surrounding rocks remained a mystery to geologists. Geologists know that around massifs of igneous rocks of all types, powerful zones of contact changes arise due to recrystallization and changes in the host rocks. But at the contact with kimberlites, changes in sedimentary rocks are negligible. It turns out that there are changes, and very significant ones, but they are of an unusual nature. Around the tubes, powerful - up to half a kilometer - halos of concentration of small grains of luminescent minerals appear.

The content of apatite and zircon grains - minerals that glow brightly in ultraviolet rays - increases here tens and even hundreds of times. Moreover, apatite glows not with the usual yellow, but with a bluish light, which is characteristic of kimberlite apatite. These luminescent halos are explained by the powerful “purge” of surrounding rocks by deep mantle gas with restorative properties and such characteristic elements of kimberlites as europium, cerium, zirconium.

The birth of diamonds not somewhere in unknown “stone caves”, as was previously thought, but in the kimberlite pipes themselves, in the process of their formation, explains the almost perfect preservation of diamond crystals, which are found next to kimberlite pebbles, consisting of rounded, chipped and devoid of edges deep minerals actually extracted from the mantle.

Crystallization of diamonds from gas is also indicated by the constant presence of nitrogen and sometimes boron in them. In the silicate melt of the mantle there is practically no nitrogen or boron, but in the fluid these elements are concentrated because they form gaseous compounds with hydrogen. At some time, radon apparently accumulated in the fluid. It was radon, the strongest alpha emitter, that could create mysterious, unusually beautiful green diamonds. Their color is certainly due to exposure to alpha particles.

Modern industry annually produces millions of tons of soot. It is formed due to the incomplete oxidation of methane. About 80 percent of this soot goes into the production of car tires. A huge amount of soot settles on the walls of countless pipes - stoves, factories, factories, and this does not surprise anyone. But it’s somehow difficult for us to get used to the idea that a diamond is, in essence, also soot, only mantle soot. At first this analogy seems simply blasphemous. So that a too direct analogy of kimberlite pipes with chimneys does not harm the understanding of the natural process, I note that kimberlite pipes never reached the surface of the Earth and did not smoke the sky, like, for example, the chimneys of London in the 19th century.

The mantle gas “hung” in the upper layers of the earth’s crust, like a balloon with a gas burner hangs in the air when it has already spent all its energy rising. Therefore, none of the geologists was lucky enough to find a volcano in the middle of the platform scattering diamond crystals around it. The found kimberlite pipes are opened only by erosion processes. For an explorer, this means that there are many “blind” kimberlite pipes that do not reach the surface. Their presence can be recognized by the detected local magnetic anomalies, the upper edge of which is located at a depth of hundreds, and if you’re lucky, tens of meters. So good luck to you, exploration geologists!