Diamonds, the mantle petrologist's best friends

Abstract

The issue is dedicated to the International School “Diamonds, the mantle petrologist’s best friends” held at Bressanone/Brixen (Italy) on February 21–26, 2011. The school was organized by the Department of Geosciences of University of Padua, the Department of Earth Sciences of University College of London, the European Mineralogical Union (EMU) and the Italian Society of Mineralogy and Petrology (SIMP). The main sponsors were the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), the European Geosciences Union (EGU), and the University of Padua. Their economic support allowed us to cover the costs of several international speakers and to greatly reduce the registration fees for the participants. Fig. 1 An 8 carat yellow rounded dodecahedral diamond in kimberlite, recovered from the Dutoitspan mine, Kimberly, South Africa. The photograph was taken by Jeff Harris, Glasgow University, in the DeBeers sorting offices at Harry Oppenheimer House, Kimberly in August 1974. The school was aimed at students and young researchers in diamonds and mantle mineralogy, petrology and geochemistry, as well as at economic geologists who needed an authoritative review of both the basics and the latest advances in diamond science. The invited speakers were some of the eminent scientists in the field ( i.e ., Jeff Harris, Nick Sobolev, Steve Shirey, Mike Walter, …