Detection of a Ca-rich lithology in the Earth's deep (> 300 km) convecting mantle

Abstract

Earth's deep convecting upper mantle is believed to represent a rather homogenous geochemical reservoir of spinel or garnet lherzolite with primitive major element and moderately depleted trace element composition. Only where subduction occurs is this homogeneity disrupted by a suite of rocks ranging from eclogites/garnet pyroxenites (former oceanic crust) to residual harzburgites. In addition to these well documented peridotitic and metabasaltic rocks we have now discovered the presence of a chemically distinct reservoir in the deep convecting upper mantle. In situ structural analyses (micro X-ray diffraction and micro Raman spectroscopy) and three-dimensional trace element mapping (confocal micro X-ray fluorescence imaging) of polyphase inclusions in a diamond from Guinea that formed at about 300–360 km depth reveal the existence of a deep Ca-rich source, in the absence of several common mantle minerals, like olivine, garnet and low-Ca pyroxene. This reservoir may represent metasomatized oceanic lithosphere (rodingites, ophicarbonates) or metamorphosed carbonaceous sediments.