Water in the Earth’s Mantle: Mineral-specific IR Absorption Coefficients and Radiative Thermal Conductivities

Abstract:

Minor and trace element chemistry, phase relations, rheology, thermal structure and the role of volatiles and their abundance in the deep Earth mantle are still far from fully explored, but fundamental to understanding the processes involved in Earth formation and evolution. Theory and high pressure experiments imply a significant water storage capacity of nominally anhydrous minerals, such as majoritic garnet, olivine, wadsleyite and ringwoodite, composing the Earth’s upper mantle and transition zone to a depth of 660 km. Studying the effect of water incorporation on chemical and physical mineral properties is of importance, because the presence of trace amounts of water, incorporated as OH through charge-coupled chemical substitutions into such nominally anhydrous high-pressure silicates, notably influences phase relations, melting behavior, conductivity, elasticity, viscosity and rheology. Knowledge of absolute water contents in nominally anhydrous minerals is essential for modeling the Earth’s interior water cycle. One of the most common and sensitive tools for water quantification is IR spectroscopy for which mineral-specific absorption coefficients are required. Such calibration constants can be derived from hydrogen concentrations determined by independent techniques, such as secondary ion mass spectrometry, Raman spectroscopy or proton-proton(pp)-scattering. Here, analytical advances and mineral-specific IR absorption coefficients for the quantification of H₂O in major phases of the Earth’s mantle will be discussed. Furthermore, new data from optical absorption measurements in resistively heated diamond-anvil cells at high pressures and temperatures up to 1000 K will be presented. Experiments were performed on synthetic single-crystals of olivine, ringwoodite, majoritic garnet, and Al-bearing phase D with varying iron, aluminum and OH contents to calculate radiative thermal conductivities and study their contribution to heat transfer in the Earth’s interior. Absorption band assignments, effects of pressure, temperature, iron and hydration on radiative thermal conductivities will be discussed.