BRYSON BURKE
Home
Mission
Board
History
Business Plan
Latest Information
Building Our Drill
Innovation
Photo Album
Satellite Weather
Free News - Sign Guestbook

INVESTING
Investment
Stock Quotes

COMMUNICATION
Press Releases
Newsletter
Current Information
Contact

SITE GEOLOGY
Geology Reports
Site Geologic History
Magnetic Maps Index
Heavy Minerals Index
Grenville Province Index

DIAMOND POLITICS
Blood Diamonds
Kimberley Process

DIAMOND GEOLOGY
Indicator Minerals
Kimberlites
Decay of Kimberlites
Kimberlites & Magnetics
Placer Deposits
Magnetic Reversal
Crustal Thickness
How Diamonds are Made
Glaciation Issues
Mineral Transport Index
Doing the Map Work
Gathering Samples
World Mining Index
Excavation and Recovery
Mining Corporations
Mining News Magazines
Environmental Issues
Diamonds in Space
World's Only MineCam
Live Volcano Geo-Cams

EXPLORATION
Site Exploration History
Topography Map Index
Location Map
Claim Maps Index

DIAMONDS
Diamonds and Graphite
Diamond Formation
Grading Diamonds
Price of Diamonds
Industrial Diamonds
Drilling Equipment
Medical Use of Diamonds
Gemstones
Birthstones
Hall of Fame

DIAMONDS IN CULTURE
Good Books on Diamonds
Cremains to Diamonds
Diamonds in Lawsuits
Irish Diamonds
Unusual Diamond News
Diamonds in the Media
Famous Jewelers
In Advertisements
Top Twenty Cut Diamonds
Top Diamonds
Diamond Lore
Theft/Hoaxes/and Fraud
Religion Index
Diamond/ Culture Index
Television
Movies
Games - Play Now
Music
Weddings
Royals
Our Darlings
Diamond Animal Index

INTERACTIVE
Reflection/Refraction Index
Crossword Puzzle Index
Which Is A Diamond I
Which is a Diamond II
Become a Gemologist

Plagioclases and pyroxenes crystallize out along the walls of the chamber forming layered igneous rocks of the crustal portion of the lithosphere (these will be later metamorphosed to amphibolites). And magmas spill onto the ocean floor forming pillow basalts. Although some of these are komatiitic in composition, some have fractionated to tholeiite.

To understand these rocks we have to go back to the earth's origins. In the beginning the earth was a red-hot molten ball, rich in ultramafic materials (the parent material), including large quantities of silica, iron, and calcium. High density materials sink toward the center, and the surface is a magma ocean cooling and solidifying to a lithosphere of gabbros, basalts and anorthosites. (You have to close your eyes and imagine flying past the earth about 4.2 billion years ago; it is a bubbling, seathing hot ball of red magma everywhere. It is also a planet devoid of intermediate or felsic igneous rocks, continental blocks, or sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.)
In the mantle turbulent convection cells form and convect heat to the surface via rising plumes of plastic rock. A few tens of kilometers below the surface reduced pressure leads to melting, and subcrustal ponding of ultramafic magmas. Some of the magma escapes to the surface as volcanoes, and the magma chamber begins a cooling phase. During the cooling, fractional crystallization occurs as geologic processes physically separate the various fractions into layered igneous rocks of ultramafics, anorthosites, and mafic volcanics.

Source: The Wilson Cycle

Archaean Komatiite Suite

The Archean is the oldest phase of earth history, and it often produced rocks rare or non-existent later in history. Archean oceanic lithospheric rocks tend to be rare today, since they would subduct, but the preserved examples we do have consists of interlayered amphibolites (medium grade metamorphosed ultramafic igneous rocks) (often pillowed) and anorthosites (Ca rich plagioclases), sometimes with nickel and chromium rich layers (Windley, 1984).

The close spatial and chemical association of these rocks points to a common origin of fractional crystallization of an ultramafic (komatiite) parent at an oceanic rift system. During fractionation highly refractory components such as nickel, chromium and olivine crystallize out and settle to the bottom of the magma chamber forming the bottom of the Archean oceanic lithosphere.