Blue boron-bearing diamonds from Earth's lower mantle.

Abstract

Geological pathways for the recycling of Earth's surface materials into the mantle are both driven and obscured by plate tectonics^1-3. Gauging the extent of this recycling is difficult because subducted crustal components are often released at relatively shallow depths, below arc volcanoes^4-7. The conspicuous existence of blue boron-bearing diamonds (type IIb)^8,9 reveals that boron, an element abundant in the continental and oceanic crust, is present in certain diamond-forming fluids at mantle depths. However, both the provenance of the boron and the geological setting of diamond crystallization were unknown. Here we show that boron-bearing diamonds carry previously unrecognized mineral assemblages whose high-pressure precursors were stable in metamorphosed oceanic lithospheric slabs at depths reaching the lower mantle. We propose that some of the boron in seawater-serpentinized oceanic lithosphere is subducted into the deep mantle, where it is released with hydrous fluids that enable diamond growth¹⁰. Type IIb diamonds are thus among the deepest diamonds ever found and indicate a viable pathway for the deep-mantle recycling of crustal elements.