Publication Date:
2018-06-16
Description:
The juxtaposition of a liquid iron-dominant alloy against a mixture of silicate and oxide minerals at Earth's core-mantle boundary is associated with a wide range of complex seismological features. One category of observed structures is ultralow-velocity zones, which are thought to correspond to either aggregates of partially molten material or solid, iron-enriched assemblages. We measured the phonon dispersion relations of (Mg,Fe) O magnesiowüstite containing 76 mol % FeO, a candidate ultralow-velocity zone phase, at high pressures using high-energy resolution inelastic X-ray scattering. From these measurements, we find that magnesiowüstite becomes strongly elastically anisotropic with increasing pressure, potentially contributing to a significant proportion of seismic anisotropy detected near the base of the mantle. ©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
Print ISSN:
2169-9313
Electronic ISSN:
2169-9356
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Physics
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