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Published July 30, 2004 | Published
Journal Article Open

Shock-induced melting of MgSiO_3 perovskite and implications for melts in Earth's lowermost mantle

Abstract

New shock wave equation of state (EOS) data for enstatite and MgSiO_3 glass constrain the density change upon melting of Mg-silicate perovskite up to 200 GPa. The melt becomes denser than perovskite near the base of Earth's lower mantle. This inference is confirmed by shock temperature data suggesting a negative pressure-temperature slope along the melting curve at high pressure. Although melting of Earth's mantle involves multiple phases and chemical components, this implies that the partial melts invoked to explain anomalous seismic velocities in the lowermost mantle may be dynamically stable.

Additional Information

© 2004 American Geophysical Union. Received 12 April 2004; accepted 2 July 2004; published 30 July 2004. This work was funded by the National Science Foundation through grants EAR-9903806 and EAR-0207934. Thanks to Carl Francis and Stephen Mackwell for providing the high quality Sri Lankan enstatites used in this study. The authors thank an anonymous reviewer and editor Kristine Larson for their help improving the manuscript. This is Caltech GPS contribution #9046.

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August 22, 2023
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October 18, 2023