Geology of the Renard 2 pipe to 1000m depth, Renard Mine, Quebec, Canada: insights into Kimberley-type pyroclastic kimberlite emplacement

The Renard 2 pipe is currently the deepest-drilled and most extensively studied kimberlite body in the Renard cluster, central Quebec, Canada, forming the major component of the Mineral Resource of Stornoway Diamond Corporation's Renard Mine. Renard 2 is infilled with two distinct kimberlite units that exhibit Kimberley-type pyroclastic kimberlite and related textures. Hypabyssal kimberlite also occurs as smaller cross-cutting sheets and irregular intrusions. The units are distinguished by their rock textures, groundmass mineral assemblages, olivine macrocryst size distributions and replacement products, mantle and country rock xenolith contents, whole rock geochemical signatures, bulk densities and diamond grades. These differences are interpreted to reflect different mantle ascent and near-surface emplacement processes and are here demonstrated to be vertically continuous from present surface to over 1000m depth. The distinctive petrological features together with sharp, steep and cross-cutting internal contact relationships, show that each unit was formed from a separate batch of mantle-derived kimberlite magma, and was completely solidified before subsequent emplacement of the later unit. The mineralogy and textures of the ultra-fine-grained interclast matrix are consistent with those described at numerous Kimberley-type pyroclastic kimberlite localities around the world and are interpreted to reflect rapid primary crystallization during emplacement of separate kimberlite magmatic systems. The units of fractured and brecciated country rock surrounding the main kimberlite pipe contain kimberlite-derived material including carbonate providing evidence of subsurface brecciation. Together these data show that Renard 2 represents the deeper parts of a Kimberley-type pyroclastic kimberlite pipe system and demonstrates that their diagnostic features result from magmatic crystallisation during subsurface volcanic emplacement processes.