Mantle plume

A mantle plume is a proposed mechanism of convection within the Earth's mantle, hypothesized to explain anomalous volcanism. Because the plume head partially melts on reaching shallow depths, a plume is often invoked as the cause of volcanic hotspots, such as Hawaii or Iceland, and large igneous provinces such as the Deccan and Siberian Traps. Some such volcanic regions lie far from tectonic plate boundaries, while others represent unusually large-volume volcanism near plate boundaries. Concepts Mantle plumes were first proposed by J. Tuzo Wilson in 1963 and further developed by W. Jason Morgan in 1971 and 1972. A mantle plume is posited to exist where super-heated material forms (nucleates) at the core-mantle boundary and rises through the Earth's mantle. Rather than a continuous stream, plumes should be viewed as a series of hot bubbles of material. Reaching the brittle upper Earth's crust they form diapirs. These diapirs are "hotspots" in

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Composition and Pressure Effects on Partitioning of Ferrous Iron in Iron-Rich Lower Mantle Heterogeneities

James Badro, Charles-Edouard Boukaré, Marco Cantoni, Susannah McGregor Dorfman, Philippe Gillet, Farhang Nabiei

Both seismic observations of dense low shear velocity regions and models of magma ocean crystallization and mantle dynamics support enrichment of iron in Earth’s lowermost mantle. Physical properties of iron-rich lower mantle heterogeneities in the modern Earth depend on distribution of iron between coexisting lower mantle phases (Mg,Fe)O magnesiowüstite, (Mg,Fe)SiO3 bridgmanite, and (Mg,Fe)SiO3 post-perovskite. The partitioning of iron between these phases was investigated in synthetic ferrous-iron-rich olivine compositions (Mg0.55Fe0.45)2SiO4 and (Mg0.28Fe0.72)2SiO4 at lower mantle conditions ranging from 33–128 GPa and 1900–3000 K in the laser-heated diamond anvil cell. The resulting phase assemblages were characterized by a combination of in situ X-ray diffraction and ex situ transmission electron microscopy. The exchange coefficient between bridgmanite and magnesiowüstite decreases with pressure and bulk Fe# and increases with temperature. Thermodynamic modeling determines that incorporation and partitioning of iron in bridgmanite are explained well by excess volume associated with Mg-Fe exchange. Partitioning results are used to model compositions and densities of mantle phase assemblages as a function of pressure, FeO-content and SiO2-content. Unlike average mantle compositions, iron-rich compositions in the mantle exhibit negative dependence of density on SiO2-content at all mantle depths, an important finding for interpretation of deep lower mantle structures.

2021

Terrestrial Accretion Under Oxidizing Conditions

James Badro

The abundance of siderophile elements in the mantle preserves the signature of core formation. On the basis of partitioning experiments at high pressure (35 to 74 gigapascals) and high temperature (3100 to 4400 kelvin), we demonstrate that depletions of slightly siderophile elements (vanadium and chromium), as well as moderately siderophile elements (nickel and cobalt), can be produced by core formation under more oxidizing conditions than previously proposed. Enhanced solubility of oxygen in the metal perturbs the metal-silicate partitioning of vanadium and chromium, precluding extrapolation of previous results. We propose that Earth accreted from materials as oxidized as ordinary or carbonaceous chondrites. Transfer of oxygen from the mantle to the core provides a mechanism to reduce the initial magma ocean redox state to that of the present-day mantle, reconciling the observed mantle vanadium and chromium concentrations with geophysical constraints on light elements in the core.

2013

An early geodynamo driven by exsolution of mantle components from Earth's core

James Badro

Recent palaeomagnetic observations(1) report the existence of a magnetic field on Earth that is at least 3.45 billion years old. Compositional buoyancy caused by inner-core growth(2) is the primary driver of Earth's present-day geodynamo(3-5), but the inner core is too young(6) to explain the existence of a magnetic field before about one billion years ago. Theoretical models(7) propose that the exsolution of magnesium oxide-the major constituent of Earth's mantle-from the core provided a major source of the energy required to drive an early dynamo, but experimental evidence for the incorporation of mantle components into the core has been lacking. Indeed, terrestrial core formation occurred in the early molten Earth by gravitational segregation of immiscible metal and silicate melts, transporting iron-loving (siderophile) elements from the silicate mantle to the metallic core(8-10) and leaving rock-loving (lithophile) mantle components behind. Here we present experiments showing that magnesium oxide dissolves in core-forming iron melt at very high temperatures. Using core-formation models(11), we show that extreme events during Earth's accretion (such as the Moon-forming giant impact(12)) could have contributed large amounts of magnesium to the early core. As the core subsequently cooled, exsolution(7) of buoyant magnesium oxide would have taken place at the core-mantle boundary, generating a substantial amount of gravitational energy as a result of compositional buoyancy. This amount of energy is comparable to, if not more than, that produced by inner-core growth, resolving the conundrum posed by the existence of an ancient magnetic field prior to the formation of the inner core.

Nature Publishing Group2016

Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics (from the tectonicus, from the τεκτονικός) is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates which have been slowly moving since about

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A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are

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Basalt (UKˈbæsɔːlt,_-əlt; USbəˈsɔːlt,_ˈbeɪsɔːlt) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava)

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