Prospects for discovery of middle Paleozoic kimberlites in the South of the Siberian Platform (from mineralogical and paleogeographic evidence)

Seventeen Middle Paleozoic haloes of kimberlite minerals have been distinguished in Middle Devonian, Early Carboniferous, and younger terrigenous collectors in the south of the Siberian Platform. The paleogeographic settings in which they formed rule out supply of material from the already discovered bodies and suggest erosion of numerous local coeval primary sources. Comparison of the haloes with the model for kimberlite field manifestation in terrigenous collectors, elaborated on the basis of known kimberlite fields in Western Yakutia, evidences that they are cut off from primary sources. We predict the existence of Middle Paleozoic kimberlites buried under Permian-Triassic deposits in southern Siberia. These kimberlites, apparently, differ from the known West Yakutian pipes in manifestation of earlier phases of intrusion and in essentially pyrope composition of indicator minerals.