Crossword clues for kimberlite
Wiktionary
n. (context geology English) A variety of peridotite containing a high proportion of carbon dioxide; often contains diamonds.
WordNet
n. a rare type of peridotite that sometimes contains diamonds; found in South Africa and Siberia
Wikipedia
Kimberlite is an igneous rock best known for sometimes containing diamonds. It is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where the discovery of an diamond called the Star of South Africa in 1869 spawned a diamond rush, eventually creating the Big Hole.
Kimberlite occurs in the Earth's crust in vertical structures known as kimberlite pipes as well as igneous dykes and sills. Kimberlite pipes are the most important source of mined diamonds today. The consensus on kimberlites is that they are formed deep within the mantle. Formation occurs at depths between , potentially from anomalously enriched exotic mantle compositions, and they are erupted rapidly and violently, often with considerable carbon dioxide and other volatile components. It is this depth of melting and generation which makes kimberlites prone to hosting diamond xenocrysts.
Kimberlite has attracted more attention than its relative rarity might suggest it deserves. This is largely because it serves as a carrier of diamonds and garnet peridotite mantle xenoliths to the Earth's surface. Its probable derivation from depths greater than any other igneous rock type, and the extreme magma composition that it reflects in terms of low silica content and high levels of incompatible trace element enrichment, make an understanding of kimberlite petrogenesis important. In this regard, the study of kimberlite has the potential to provide information about the composition of the deep mantle and about melting processes occurring at or near the interface between the cratonic continental lithosphere and the underlying convecting asthenospheric mantle.
Usage examples of "kimberlite".
We also know a little bit about the mantle from what are known as kimberlite pipes, where diamonds are formed.
Lots of carbon comes up with kimberlite ejecta, but most is vaporized or turns to graphite.
Each day saw it driven deeper and deeper still, as the miners followed the fabulous cone of blue kimberlite conglomerate downwards.
Mandobar and the natives back to the alcove where the kimberlite opened up.
The banded ironstone of the walls overlaid dolomites and limestone with weathered yellow kimberlite streaked with unweathered blue, indicating what had previously been a classic diamondiferous kimberlite pipe.
When it reached the solid part of the lithosphere, the actual Clyde craton, which was about 35 kloms thick, it was still hot enough to melt the rock in its path and turn it into the stuff called kimberlite.
We've even had a kimberlite diatreme for the first time in thirty thousand orbits.
The crystals form at great depths beneath ancient cratonic landmasses and are blasted to the surface when diatrematic activity forms a kimberlite pipe.
A kimberlite pipe could explode in your backyard as you read this.
We also know a little bit about the mantle from what are known as kimberlite pipes, where diamonds are formed.