Mineral and Melt Physics

Mineral physics is a field of materials physics and materials chemistry confined to the study of materials pertinent to the Earth and planetary interiors. In the last two decades, emphasis has been given to research on the values of physical properties in materials appropriate to the Earth's mantle and core. Braginsky and Roberts [1995] listed the physical properties that play a key role in their analysis of convection of the Earth's core and the dynamo. These connect mineral physics to geomagnetism of the core. This review will be concerned primarily with progress made in the last four years in refining values of these properties.

Section: Highlights In Experimental Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mineral physics of iron and of the core

Anderson¹

1995

“…At greater depths, a different type of transition, one in which crystalline order is gradually lost as the pressure in creases, may be responsible [Meade and Jeanloz, 1991]. The list of silicates which undergo these so-called pressure-induced amorphization transitions continues to grow [Serghiou and Hammock, 1993;Zhang and Ong, 1993;Guyot and Reynard, 1992; see also Wolf et al, 1991]. The ubiquity of these transi tions may indicate the presence of significant amounts of amorphous phases in the earth, at least in subduction envi ronments.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mineral physics of the mantle

Stixrude¹

1995

The last few years have seen intense interest in the global environment and climate change, and with it an increasing appreciation for the interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere, oceans and the solid earth. In solid earth geophysics, the traditional boundaries between the earth's fluid and solid spheres have been breached by the growing body of evidence that they may physically communicate on a massive scale, that atmospheric constituents, under certain conditions, may be transported to and stored within the deepest parts of the earth. Of course there has for some time been an appreciation for influence of mantle dynamics, the driving force of plate tectonics, volcanism, and seismicity, on surface processes. However, perhaps nothing illustrates the essential connections better than visualizing, now with some experimental and observational support, a tropospheric molecule, transported through sedimentary and tectonic agents 3000 km to the core mantle boundary, only to rise again, perhaps many millions of years later in a volcanic eruption.

Global seismic tomography of the mantle

Dziewoński¹

1995

At the end of the previous decade, a general consensus has developed that it is feasible to map on the global scale some of the largest scale 3‐D features in the Earth's deep interior and that such mapping may have fundamental significance for our understanding of the geodynamic processes, such as the flow in the mantle. General reviews of the state‐of‐the‐art for that period can be found in Dziewonski and Woodhouse [1987], Woodhouse and Dziewonski [1989] and Romanowicz [1991]. In the first four years of the 1990's, significant progress has been achieved on several fronts. One of these is introduction of the new class of data: travel times measured from the long period components of digital seismograms. These data are much more accurate than, for example, those reported by the ISC, and geophysically important patterns could be detected without inversion.