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Density of hydrous silicate melt at the conditions of Earth's deep upper mantle

Nature volume 438, pages 488–491 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

The chemical evolution of the Earth and the terrestrial planets is largely controlled by the density of silicate melts. If melt density is higher than that of the surrounding solid, incompatible elements dissolved in the melt will be sequestered in the deep mantle1,2. Previous studies on dry (water-free) melts showed that the density of silicate melts can be higher than that of surrounding solids under deep mantle conditions3,4,5,6,7,8. However, melts formed under deep mantle conditions are also likely to contain some water2, which will reduce the melt density. Here we present data constraining the density of hydrous silicate melt at the conditions of ∼410 km depth. We show that the water in the silicate melt is more compressible than the other components, and therefore the effect of water in reducing melt density is markedly diminished under high-pressure conditions. Our study indicates that there is a range of conditions under which a (hydrous) melt could be trapped at the 410-km boundary and hence incompatible elements could be sequestered in the deep mantle, although these conditions are sensitive to melt composition as well as the composition of the surrounding mantle.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Back-scattered electron images of run products.
Figure 3: Compression curves of the hydrous melts and density marker (diamond) at 2,170 K.
Figure 4: Densities of various hydrous melts with 5 wt% H 2O and dry melts at 410 km depth as a function of the FeO content.
Figure 5: The condition of density crossover between the hydrous melt and surrounding silicate solid at 410 km depth for a range of the partial molar volume of water.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Y. Nishihara for advice on experimental techniques and discussions, and H. Sumiya for the supply of single crystals of diamond. This work was supported by NSF (S.K.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Sciences, Ibaraki University, Ibaraki, 310-0056, Mito, Japan

    Kyoko N. Matsukage

  2. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, Connecticut, 06520, New Haven, USA

    Kyoko N. Matsukage, Zhicheng Jing & Shun-ichiro Karato

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  1. Kyoko N. Matsukage
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Correspondence to Kyoko N. Matsukage.

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Matsukage, K., Jing, Z. & Karato, Si. Density of hydrous silicate melt at the conditions of Earth's deep upper mantle. Nature 438, 488–491 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04241

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