Earth's core-mantle boundary - Results of experiments at high pressures and temperatures

Details Earth's core-mantle boundary - Results of experiments at high pressures and temperatures Earth's core-mantle boundary - Results of experiments at high pressures and temperatures

Mar 1991

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991sci...251.1438k&link_type=abstract

Science (ISSN 0036-8075), vol. 251, March 22, 1991, p. 1438-1443. NASA-supported research.

Mathematics

Logic

166

Chemical Evolution, Earth Core, Earth Mantle, Iron Compounds, Liquid Metals, Liquid-Liquid Interfaces, Chemical Composition, Chemical Reactions, High Pressure, High Temperature, Perovskites, Silicates

Scientific paper

Laboratory experiments document that liquid iron reacts chemically with silicates at high pressures (above 2.4 x 10 to the 10th Pa) and temperatures. In particular, (Mg,Fe)SiO3 perovskite, the most abundant mineral of earth's lower mantle, is expected to react with liquid iron to produce metallic alloys (FeO and FeSi) and nonmetallic silicates (SiO2 stishovite and MgSiO3 perovskite) at the pressures of the core-mantle boundary, 14 x 10 to the 10th Pa. The experimental observations, in conjunction with seismological data, suggest that the lowermost 200 to 300 km of earth's mantle, the D-double-prime layer, may be an extremely heterogeneous region as a result of chemical reactions between the silicate mantle and the liquid iron alloy of earth's core. The combined thermal-chemical-electrical boundary layer resulting from such reactions offers a plausible explanation for the complex behavior of seismic waves near the core-mantle boundary and could influence earth's magnetic field observed at the surface.

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