Constraints on clinopyroxene/melt partitioning of REE, Rb, Sr, Ti, Cr, Zr, and Nb during mantle melting: First insights from direct peridotite melting experiments at 1.0 GPa

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Earlier piston-cylinder experiments in our laboratory produced a collection of mantle melting run products at 1.0 GPa that have now been analyzed by ion probe for selected REE, Ti, Cr, Rb, Sr, Y, Zr, and Nb. Natural starting materials were used and experiments were run in graphite-lined Pt capsules with the melt separated from the residual minerals into a layer of vitreous carbon spheres (VCS) to circumvent quench modification. The glass phase in 18 run products, representing melt percentages of ˜2 20 wt%, yielded excellent data that were inverted to yield the first estimates ever of clinopyroxene/melt distribution coefficients, Ds, derived from direct peridotite partial melting experiments. Uncertainties were estimated with a Monte Carlo method. For the REE and Y, these Ds were then compared to Ds calculated with the widely-used model of Wood and Blundy (1997) and the two sets overlap at the ±2σ level in 123 of 128 cases (˜96%). This indicates to us that: 1) the experiments analyzed here are well equilibrated with respect to major and trace element distributions, thus supporting the efficacy of the VCS technique and its variation involving diamond (e.g., Baker and Stolper, “Determining the composition of high-pressure mantle melts using diamond aggregates” [1994], Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta58, 2811 2827); 2) the model of Wood and Blundy (1997), calibrated largely on the basis of large melt fraction, inverse- or sandwich-type experiments, describes REE and Y partitioning during peridotite melting well, even very near the solidus; and it suggests that the cpx/melt Ds derived here for other elements, not modeled by the Wood and Blundy formulation, are probably also correct for peridotite melting to within their ±2σ uncertainties. Dsp/liq and Dcpx/liq values for Cr calculated directly from electron microprobe data decrease by about a factor of five with increasing temperature and melt percentage. The degree to which our experiments appear to have equilibrated seems at odds with recent measurements of the diffusivities of REE in diopside which suggest that relatively small percentages of our starting mineral grains should have equilibrated diffusively. Instead, we suggest that equilibration occurs much more rapidly through the processes of recrystallization and grain coarsening, accomplished through dissolution and reprecipitation. This suggestion is supported by the observation that our final grain sizes are typically 5 10 times larger than the ˜10 μm starting sizes, indicating that substantial mass transfer occurred in our experiments, probably mediated by the melt phase in which diffusion is faster.

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