J B Dawson – författare

Physics and Chemistry of the Earth investigates the physics and chemistry of the earth, with emphasis on kimberlite and xenolith geology. Topics covered range from field geology to mineralogy and geochemistry, diamond inclusions, and experimental and theoretical petrology. Diatreme emplacement by fluidization is also discussed, along with the chemistry and genesis of opaque minerals in kimberlites; light element metasomatism of the continental mantle; and primary and secondary phlogopites and clinopyroxenes in garnet lherzolite xenoliths. Comprised of 59 chapters, this volume begins with a description of a model of a kimberlite pipe that depicts a hypothetical pipe having a diameter of 300 m at a level equivalent to the post-erosional surface of the major pipes in the Kimberley area, South Africa. Subsequent chapters explore the formation of phreatomagmatic maar-diatreme volcanoes and its relevance to kimberlite diatremes; emplacement of some diatreme-facies kimberlites; irregular patterns of magmatism in southwestern United States; and the chemistry of titanium-poor spinels, ilmenites, and rutiles from peridotite and eclogite xenoliths. Chromite-silicate intergrowths in upper mantle peridotites are also analyzed. The final chapter is devoted to theoretical aspects of gaseous and isotopic equilibria in the system C-H-O-S, with application to kimberlite. This book will be of interest to physicists and geophysicists, chemists and geochemists, geologists, and earth scientists.

In these days of information explosion and high-cost publishing, it is perhaps only reasonable for an author to convince the reading public that it is getting something worth reading. After all, intense research into the upper mantle over the past two decades has already resulted in a number of volumes on kim­ berlites and their xenoliths. So why yet another one? First, in this book I have concentrated on kimberlite as an individual rock-type and a sampler of the upper mantle, in the hope of complementing such monographs as Deep seated inclusions in kimberlites and the problem of the composition of the upper mantle by N. V. Sobolev and Geologie du Diamant by M. G. Bardet, which have concentrated more on specific aspects of kimberlite and upper mantle geology; as a result I have not attempted to describe diamond prospecting and mining and, although I have attempted to give some of the up-to-date views on xenolith petrology, the confines of space have not permitted me to explore the complexities of the upper mantle as deeply as has Sobolev. Second, the literature is vast and I have tried to pull together for the reader the wide range of views and infor­ mation presented both in the recent geological literature and in recent multi-author volumes such as the Proceedings Vol­ umes of the two International Conferences on Kimberlite held at Capetown in 1973 and Santa Fe in 1977.