Structural Setting of Kimberlites on the East-European Platform

Data are given on the repeated formation of kimberlites within shield, plates, and in miogeosyncline zones of mobile regions. The kimberlites are produced during the Earth’s crust extension at the initial stages of large geotectonic cycles (Hercynian, Caledonian, Baikalian, etc) in zones of deep-seated faults which usually parallel the strike of mobile areas or are confined to more ancient disjunctions. Diamond productivity of kimberlites depends mainly on the presence of elemental carbon in the subcrustal substrate, thermodynamic and redox state of melt, quantity and energy of volatile components, the mode of diamondiferous rock occurrence in the crust, and on the effect of metasomatic oxidation processes.