ISSN:
1432-2021
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Geosciences
,
Physics
Notes:
Abstract Annealing experiments on natural olivine (Mg1-x Fe x )2SiO4 (with x≈0.11) crystals (San Carlos, Arizona, spinel-lherzolite context) have been performed between T=1,100° C and 1,500° C for oxygen partial pressures pO2=10−3 to 10−13 bar and times of 1 to 140 h in CO/CO2 or H2/H2O gas mixtures. Even specimens annealed within the T-pO2 theoretical stability field (TSF) calculated for stoichiometric olivine (Nitsan 1974) show systematic alterations developed within the first few microns of the surface of the crystals. Pyroxene crystals or melt form on the original olivine surface even at T=1,100° C, with preference of pyroxene when T〈1,350° C and SiO2-rich glass if T〉1,350° C. This glass (rhyolite-like) can concentrate calcium from the starting olivine, and aluminum when Cr-Al spinels are present as inclusions. These observations are in contradiction with the TSF. They are obviously due to the presence of platinum used as a container of our samples, even if the contact between olivine and platinum is very weak. Rapid surficial diffusion of iron toward platinum (or via the gas phase) induces a Fe-depleted surface. According to the TSF, this more forsteritic surface should have a wider pO2 range of stability. This is not the case, just because this situation is largely out of equilibrium. This iron loss induces a departure from cationic stoichiometry: (Mg, Fe)2(1−δ), SiO4 with δ small and positive. We extended the model that Nakamura and Schmalzried (1983) (N.S.) developed for fayalite (x=1) to our natural olivine composition, under the assumption that the majority defects are magnesium vacancies, Fe3+ occupying octahedral and tetrahedral sites, and the more complex neutral defect corresponding to Coulombic attraction between neighboring Fe3+ ions. We have recalculated the olivine stability field in pO2 vs. δ space at T=1,300° C using this model for x≈0.1 (its extreme limit of validity) and conclude that olivine is stable only in a very narrow range in pO2 which depends on δ. The calculation shows also that when olivine has nearly cationic stoichiometry (δ=0) as we believe for our starting material, the pO2 range of stability is narrower than indicated by the TSF. In particular, it explains why Fe precipitates from the olivine (δ=0) (in absence of any other precipitation of SiO2-rich phases) between 10−11 and 10−13 bar at 1,300° C; this was not predicted by the TSF. Magnetite or iron precipitates also coexist with SiO2-rich exsolutions or pyroxene when pO2 is close to the upper or lower boundaries of the TSF, respectively. The N.S. model may have important implications for the interpretation of the existence of partial melting and/or the low-viscosity/low velocity zone in the upper mantle.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00307607
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