Abstract
Cubic diamonds from Zaire show excellent correlations between potassium content and 40Ar/36Ar ratio, and between 40Ar/36Ar and 39Ar/36Ar, which can be interpreted to yield an 'isochron' age of about 6 Gyr. Now the discovery of a correlation between chlorine content and 40Ar, together with recent mineralogical and geochemical work concerning the origin of cubic diamonds, strongly suggests that the 40Ar is an excess component which has no age significance, and that the 40Ar and its associated potassium are contained in sub-micrometre inclusions of mantle-derived fluid.
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Ozima, M., Zashu, S., Takigami, Y. et al. Origin of the anomalous 40Ar—39Ar age of Zaire cubic diamonds: excess 40Ar in pristine mantle fluids. Nature 337, 226–229 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1038/337226a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/337226a0
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