2024 Author: Adelina Croftoon | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 02:07
An international team of geophysicists discovered for the first time direct evidence of the presence of hydrous fluids in the upper layer of the lower mantle at a record depth - about a thousand kilometers from the Earth's surface.
The study is published in the journal Lithos and briefly reported by New Scientist.
Internal structure of the Earth. Image: serc.carleton.edu
Scientists analyzed a diamond that about 90 million years ago was thrown to the surface of the Earth near the São Luis River in modern Brazil as a result of a volcanic eruption. The mineral had inclusions that got into it during its formation and were detected by infrared microscopy.
The inclusions in the diamond turned out to be associated with the presence of hydroxyl ions, which, most likely, got into the mineral along with water. Detailed studies of the inclusions made it possible to determine their chemical composition. It turned out that for the most part they consist of ferripericlase (magnesiowustite), of which about a fifth of the mineral phase of the lower, that is, located at a depth of 660-2900 kilometers, of the Earth's mantle consists.
Ferripericlase consists of iron and magnesium oxides, and can also absorb chromium, aluminum and titanium at ultrahigh pressures and temperatures characteristic of the lower mantle. Meanwhile, these additional inclusions were not found in the mineral, which allowed the authors to conclude that the diamond originated at a depth of about a thousand kilometers.
Scientists' research is important for explaining the origin of water on the planet. The authors note that they received the world's first direct evidence of the presence of water in such a deep layer of the mantle.
Earlier, experts, having studied komatiite and olivine, showed that at a depth of 410-660 kilometers under the Earth's surface there is a conserved ocean of the Archean period (2, 7 billion years old), the volume of which is several times larger than the size of the World Ocean. Their findings were supported by the work of colleagues who also studied hydrated minerals, in particular brucite.
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