Iron spin crossovers at high pressures and temperatures and their effects on materials relevant tot he Earth’s lower mantle and core

Iron is the most abundant element by mass in the Earth. The iron content and its spin or oxidation state have a major influence on the physical properties of the main phases in the Earth’s interior. Therefore it is of vast importance to understand the behavior of iron in mineral phases at the temperature and pressure conditions of the Earth’s interior. This cumulative thesis investigates Fe spin crossovers in iron-containing magnesium aluminum silicates, iron-bearing silicate glasses, the iron carbide Fe3C and the effect of Fe spin crossovers on the Fe/Mg partitioning between perovskite and ferropericlase in pyrolitic model system of the Earth’s lower mantle. The goal is first to understand the nature of the Fe spin crossover in respect to its oxidation state and second to estimate the consequences of their occurrence to processes and the structure in the Earth. Central tools in these studies are laser heated diamond anvil cells, to reach the pressure and temperature conditions of the Earth’s interior, Mössbauer spectroscopy, which is a sensitive probe for detecting structural and spin changes in Fe-bearing materials, and analytical transmission electron microscopy, as a probe of chemistry and oxidation state on the nm-scale. In this cumulative thesis I present the results of five research articles. For the analysis of conventional and recently developed synchrotron energy domain Mössbauer spectra the computer program MossA is introduced, which builds the basis for the analysis and interpretation of the results for the other studies. Based on synchrotron Mössbauer spectroscopy and electrical conductivity measurements of Fe-bearing silicate aluminum perovskite it is shown that Fe3+ occupies the dodecahedral A-site of the perovskite structure and remains in the high-spin state throughout the pressure and temperature conditions of the Earth’s lower mantle. Furthermore, a study on the electronic behavior of Fe in a Fe2+-rich aluminous silicate glass and a Fe3+-rich sodium silicate glass infers that no sharp high spin to low spin crossover occurs in silicate melts in the Earth’s lower mantle. This result excludes the possibility of negatively buoyant melts in the lower mantle in an early magma ocean solely due to strong preferential partitioning of iron into the melt phase, which would be induced by a Fe low-spin bearing melt. New insights into to decoupled partitioning behavior of Fe2+ and Fe3+ between the two dominant phases of the Earth’s lower mantle, perovskite and ferropericlase, are presented. The intermediate spin to low spin crossover of Fe2+ in perovskite at about 110 GPa seems to have a strong effect on partitioning and oxidation state of Fe. It leads to a change of the partitioning behavior of Fe between perovskite and ferropericlase and induces a reduction of Fe3+ to Fe2+ in perovskite. Finally, a Mössbauer spectroscopic and single-crystal x-ray diffraction study of Fe3C reveals a two-stage loss of magnetism in Fe3C at high pressures at room temperature: a ferro- to paramagnetic transition around 8-10 GPa and a para- to nonmagnetic transition at about 22 GPa.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Universität Bayreuth

Year

2013

Author dc:creator

• Prescher, Clemens

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dubrovinsky, Leonid

Repository record source_url

https://epub.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/80/

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:epub.uni-bayreuth.de:80