HIGH-TEMPERATURE ELASTICITY OF IRON-BEARING OLIVINES

The first high-temperature data on the nine adiabatic elastic moduli for iron-bearing olivine are reported. These measurements are on two single-crystal specimens of natural olivine at ambient pressure and from room temperature to a maximum of 1500 K. The two specimens contain 8 and 9 modal percent fayalite, which required the oxygen fugacity be controlled at high temperature to preserve their chemical stability. The rectangular parallelepiped resonance apparatus was adapted to buffer the specimens from the atmosphere with a mixture of CO and CO2 gas. A small increase (approximately 1-2 GPa) in the adiabatic bulk modulus of each specimen, over that of end-member forsterite, was found. The data are high quality to extreme temperatures, with good agreement found when comparing the temperature derivatives of the elastic moduli of the two specimens. Neither specimen exhibits measurable nonlinear temperature dependence in the computed isotropic bulk and shear moduli, which is in contrast to published forsterite data. The temperature derivatives of the isotropic bulk modulus K(S) are (-1.69, -1.80) x 10(-2) GPa K-1 for the two olivine specimens, and the shear modulus G derivatives are (-1.38, -1.36) x 10(-2) GPa K-1. These derivatives are only slightly larger in magnitude than \(partial derivative K(S)/partial derivative T)P\ = 1.56 x 10(-2) and \(partial derivative G/partial derivative T)P\ = 1.30 x 10(-2) GPa K-1 found previously for iron-bearing olivine over a very small temperature range. There are also no significant differences between the temperature derivatives found here and the average derivatives of end-member forsterite from data retrieved over a slightly larger temperature range. Several dimensionless parameters have been calculated from these results and are discussed in view of systematics which bear on high-pressure phases in Earth's transition zone. One result from these systematics related to the seismic velocities in the Earth, and especially the shear wave velocities, is that an olivine content of less than 50% is implied at the 400-km discontinuity if Earth's upper mantle is isochemical. Furthermore, the substitution of almost 10% iron for magnesium at the forsterite end of the olivine solid solution series has little effect on the dimensionless parameters or on the temperature derivatives of the elastic moduli at high temperature.