Diamond formation due to a pH drop during fluid–rock interactions

Dimitri A. Sverjensky () and Fang Huang
Additional contact information
Dimitri A. Sverjensky: Johns Hopkins University, Charles and 34th Streets, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA
Fang Huang: Johns Hopkins University, Charles and 34th Streets, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Diamond formation has typically been attributed to redox reactions during precipitation from fluids or magmas. Either the oxidation of methane or the reduction of carbon dioxide has been suggested, based on simplistic models of deep fluids consisting of mixtures of dissolved neutral gas molecules without consideration of aqueous ions. The role of pH changes associated with water–silicate rock interactions during diamond formation is unknown. Here we show that diamonds could form due to a drop in pH during water–rock interactions. We use a recent theoretical model of deep fluids that includes ions, to show that fluid can react irreversibly with eclogite at 900 °C and 5.0 GPa, generating diamond and secondary minerals due to a decrease in pH at almost constant oxygen fugacity. Overall, our results constitute a new quantitative theory of diamond formation as a consequence of the reaction of deep fluids with the rock types that they encounter during migration. Diamond can form in the deep Earth during water–rock interactions without changes in oxidation state.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9702 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms9702

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9702

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().