SR-XRF analysis of fluid-inclusions in cloudy diamonds from Koffiefontein, South-Africa
Abstract
The study of fluid inclusions within diamonds from different locations around the world gives important information on subduction processes (e. g. of oceanic lithosphere material) and the diamond growth. For this, cloudy diamonds from Koffiefontein and Finsch mines were studied systematically at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) at the beamlines ID18F and ID22. In addition, XANES measurements (at HASYLAB beamline L) and Raman Spectroscopy (at JWG University) were performed on the same inclusion suite to complete the identification of the inclusions. To avoid the loss of information when separating the solid part of the inclusion from the diamond host and releasing the gas and/or fluid content, dedicated measurement techniques must be applied to study these fluid inclusions “in-situ”. In this work, the experiment performed at ID22 to investigate very tiny fluid inclusions in a specially prepared Koffiefontein diamond (Kf07-4) is demonstrated. The application of the confocal XRF method appears to be essential to unambiguously retrieve information from within the diamond needle on the trace element and sub-micron level. In such way, the distribution of elements such as Cl, Br, K, Ca, Ti, Mn, Fe, Ni and Cu could be studied in great detail. The extreme in-homogenous distribution of these elements in a single diamond was surprising. And whether this distribution indicates immiscibility during entrapment of the fluid phase or subsequent separation into a solid,…
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