Publication Date:
2007-09-22
Description:
Mineral properties in Earth's lower mantle are affected by iron electronic states, but representative pressures and temperatures have not yet been probed. Spin states of iron in lower-mantle ferropericlase have been measured up to 95 gigapascals and 2000 kelvin with x-ray emission in a laser-heated diamond cell. A gradual spin transition of iron occurs over a pressure-temperature range extending from about 1000 kilometers in depth and 1900 kelvin to 2200 kilometers and 2300 kelvin in the lower mantle. Because low-spin ferropericlase exhibits higher density and faster sound velocities relative to the high-spin ferropericlase, the observed increase in low-spin (Mg,Fe)O at mid-lower mantle conditions would manifest seismically as a lower-mantle spin transition zone characterized by a steeper-than-normal density gradient.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Lin, Jung-Fu -- Vanko, Gyorgy -- Jacobsen, Steven D -- Iota, Valentin -- Struzhkin, Viktor V -- Prakapenka, Vitali B -- Kuznetsov, Alexei -- Yoo, Choong-Shik -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2007 Sep 21;317(5845):1740-3.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), 7000 East Avenue, Livermore, CA 94550, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17885134" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
,
Medicine
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Natural Sciences in General
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Physics
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