Crustal evolution and the eclogite to granulite phase transition in xenoliths from the West African Craton

A suite of eclogite and granulite facies xenoliths from kimberlite pipes in the Archean Man Shield of West Africa is described. The xenoliths include lithologies ranging in composition from komatiite to anorthosite and appear to be geochemically, petrologically, and geophysically related. The suite may represent fractionation of felsic material separated from ancient mantle and added to early Archean crust. The samples can be used to define a xenolith geotherm, which may represent an ancient episode of high heat flow. The samples also imply that the crust-mantle boundary is a gradational and possibly interlayered geochemical, mineralogical, and seismic transition. It is speculated that the depleted subcontinental mantle required by diamond bearing coalescence of smaller depletion cells formed by extraction of ancient crustal components. These depleted zones are surrounded by fertile asthenospheric mantle, which may have given rise to later flood basalts such as the Karroo and Parana Provinces.