On petrological principles of allocation of promising diamond-bearing areas for geological prospection in the northern Russian Platform

Abstract

A comprehensive study of all magmatic manifestations of the Zimny Bereg kimberlite district (about 100 bodies) revealed a regular petrological zonality of the district, demonstrating both the central and linear types of the symmetry of distribution of the volcanites different in their composition and diamond-bearing potential. Elements of various petrological zonality are also noted for other areas of the northern Russian Platform: for the Tersk coast of the Kola Peninsula, the Nenok district of the Onega Peninsula, the Umba district of the Middle Timan, as well as for the entire White Sea region as a whole. These features can be used to identify the prospecting sites most promising for discovery of diamond deposits. The other most interesting districts of the northern Russian Platform are the Ust-Yansk diamond-bearing districts of the southern Arkhangelsk Region (that is characterized by a spatial coincidence of all favorable prerequisites and features, including the determined diamond-bearing potential of Quaternary deposits), as well as the Onega Peninsula and Timan Ridge. For more expeditious discovery of new diamond deposits, the intellectual, informational, industrial, and administrative resources of the individual subsoil users and scientific and governmental organizations are to be consolidated.