Том 54, № 4 (2016)

Testing the Ballhaus–Berry–Green Ol–Opx–Sp oxybarometer (BBG) on independent experimental data indicates that it overestimates the oxygen fugacity by 0.6–1.3 log units under mildly reduced conditions (near the C–CO buffer) and by as much as 2–3 log units under reduced conditions (at the IW buffer and below it). A newly developed oxibarometer is suggested to minimize this effect and enhance the capabilities of redoxometry of low-pressure mineral associations, including magmatic melts undersaturated with respect to orthopyroxene (Opx). The new empirical equation of the oxybarometer is applicable to a wide range of mafic–ultramafic magmas of normal alkalinity, including terrestrial, lunar, and meteoritic systems under pressures of 0.001–25 kbar and oxygen fugacity ranging from IW–3 to NNO + 1. The derived regression fits the ΔQFM values of the calibration dataset (154 experiments) accurate to ~0.5 log units. The new oxybarometer eliminates systematic errors when redox parameters are evaluated for the reduced region (from IW–3 to C–CO) and for crystallization of magmas without Opx on the liquidus. The efficiency of the suggested model is demonstrated by its application to natural rocks: (1) low-Ti lunar basalts, (2) tholeiites from the Shatsky Rise, (3) Siberian flood basalts, (4) rocks of the layered series of the Yoko-Dovyren intrusion, and (5) mantle xenoliths collected in southern Siberia, Mongolia, China, and the southern Russian Far East. The values yielded by such oxybarometers for intrusive rocks, which underwent long-lasting cooling and postcumulus reequilibration, should be regarded with reserve.

REE distribution patterns of the ores and host rocks of the Dzhimidon vein lead-zinc deposit (North Caucasus, Ossetia, Sadon mining district, Russia) have been analyzed to estimate ore sources of hydrothermal deposits. It is established that both types of prevailing rocks of the Sadon Area are involved in the formation of base-metal ores during activation of hydrothermal metasomatic processes in the Jurassic time, the said rocks are Paleozoic granites (the main ore-hosting rocks at the majority of deposits) and Pre- Cambrian schists (specific for only ore-hosting rocks of Dzhimidon deposit).

A variety of hypotheses have been put forward as to the nature of secondary alteration. They were tested by using the amount of insoluble SiO₂ accumulated in the rocks (Q) as the index of secondary alteration degree. This parameter allows any sample to be characterized with the degree of its secondary alteration. By putting Q values together with contents of CaO and rare earth elements, features of diamond crystal size distributions within samples in most altered kimberlites, and the distribution of these parameters over kimberlite bodies, we show that secondary processes occurred when kimberlites were exposed to postmagmatic solutions: fluids containing water and carbon dioxide. Endogenous fluids rose from the bottom of pipes along narrow local zones and spread beyond them at the top, involving larger rock masses. There, they mingled with vadose and phreatic water. The basicity decreased abruptly, inducing profound changes of rock-forming minerals and alteration of diamond crystal weight distribution by recrystallization. The study invokes a great body of factual information, including hundreds and thousands of analyzes of kimberlites from Yakutian diamond pipes: Botuobinskaya, Nyur’inskaya, Maiskaya, Internatsional’naya, Mir, Aikhal, Yubileinaya, Sytykanskaya, Udachnaya-West, and Udachnaya-East.