Mineralogy and petrology of kimberlites and alkaline rocks

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Research on the mineralogy and petrology of alkaline rocks is fundamental to our understanding of the evolution of the Earth's upper mantle and the origins of strategic mineral resources. The latter include diamond, niobium, tantalum, rare earth elements, zirconium and phosphorous. Many of the minerals found in alkaline rocks are the counterparts of compounds currently used in diverse electronic devices and for sequestering radioactive waste.Insights into the structure and composition of these minerals has proved valuable in the design of inorganic materials used for the above purposes. Alkaline rocks studied in this research are derived from kimberlite, carbonatite and agpaitic syenite magmas. This group of apparently diverse magmas are linked in that upper mantle metasomatic processes play a role in their genesis. The long term objective of the work is to determine the nature of these processes and relationships, or lack of, between the various magma types. This problem is addressed by detailed studies of the composition and paragenesis of the minerals present in these rock types together with experimental studies at low and high pressures of their synthetic analogs. Experimental studies include near-solidus to supra-liquidus crystallization studies and investigation of the solubility of metals in the synthetic analogs. The novelty of the work as a whole is that diverse mineralogical, petrological, experimental and crystaallographics studies are combined to provide insights into the genesis of these magmas and associated mineral deposits.