Mineralogy and petrology of kimberlites and alkaline rocks

对碱性岩石的矿物学和岩石学研究是理解地球上地幔演化和战略矿产资源来源的基础。后者包括钻石、铌、钽、稀土元素、锆和磷。在碱性岩石中发现的许多矿物是目前用于各种电子设备和隔离放射性废物的化合物的对应物。对这些矿物的结构和组成的洞察已被证明对设计用于上述目的的无机材料很有价值。本文研究的碱性岩来源于金伯利岩、碳酸盐岩和无水正长岩岩浆。这组明显不同的岩浆联系在一起，上地幔交代过程在它们的成因中发挥了作用。这项工作的长期目标是确定这些过程的性质以及不同岩浆类型之间的关系。这个问题是通过对这些岩石类型中存在的矿物的组成和共生的详细研究，以及它们的合成类似物在低压和高压下的实验研究来解决的。实验研究包括近固相线到超液相线结晶研究和金属在合成类似物中的溶解度调查。作为一个整体，这项工作的新奇之处在于，各种矿物学、岩石学、实验和晶体地形学研究相结合，为这些岩浆和相关矿藏的成因提供了洞察。

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.