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Bridgmanite across the lower mantle

Nature Geoscience volume 15, page 964 (2022)Cite this article

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Earth’s most abundant mineral — bridgmanite — lies hidden in the lower mantle, but Li Zhang is hopeful that advances in analytical techniques may reveal the inner workings of our world.

Extending from 670 km depth to the core–mantle boundary at 2900 km, the lower mantle comprises more than half of our planet by volume. The composition of this enigmatic region is dominated by bridgmanite ((Mg,Fe)(Fe,Al,Si)O3) — a magnesium silicate in the perovskite structure of ABX3, where A and B are cations and X an anion — likely making it the most abundant mineral on Earth1,2,3. Despite its dominance on Earth, it was only named in 2014 after it was isolated and identified in a meteorite4.

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Fig. 1: The presence of H2O determines the stability of major silica phases and affects the chemical composition of coexisting bridgmanite.

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  1. Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research (HPSTAR), Shanghai, China

    Li Zhang

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  1. Li Zhang
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Correspondence to Li Zhang.

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Zhang, L. Bridgmanite across the lower mantle. Nat. Geosci. 15, 964 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-01099-7

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