Fe-Mg and Ni PARTITIONING BETWEEN OLIVINE and SILICATE MELT
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Fe-Mg AND Ni PARTITIONING BETWEEN OLIVINE AND SILICATE MELT Thesis by Andrew Keith Matzen In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Pasadena, California 2012 (Defended January 20th, 2012) ii 2012 Andrew Keith Matzen All Rights Reserved iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Edward Stolper, for bringing me to Caltech in the summer of 2004 to work in his laboratory. While here, I was able to work with Mike Baker and John Beckett on the “small” project that would eventually turn into Chapter II of this thesis. The exceptionally positive experience I had is what, ultimately, led me to pursue my PhD at Caltech. I am very grateful for Ed’s excitement about new experiments, his demands for excellent scientific writing, and his understanding when things just didn’t work. I am also indebted to Mike and John for teaching me how to be a careful experimentalist and analyst, in addition to their friendship. I would also like to acknowledge the other members of my thesis committee: Paul Asimow for his long sessions working on thermodynamics, and his commitment to teaching new and engaging classes; George Rossman for his willingness to let me destroy beautiful mineral samples, and his open door; and John Eiler, for his patience with me as young graduate student and his commitment to PRG. I would also like to thank my fellow graduate students, especially Alan Chapman, Steve Kidder, and Steve Chemtob, for their amazing vocal abilities; Willy Amidon for mountain bike rides in the San Gabes; and June Wicks for being a fantastic office mate. My time in the L.A. area has also been made wonderful by the many friends I have made along the way, Tim, Lisa, Cam, Tom, and the entire 860 entourage. I am extremely grateful of your friendship. Lastly, I would like to thank my family, Keith, Terri, and (especially) Kelly: I wouldn’t have been able to do this without your support and love. iv ABSTRACT The mineral olivine is abundant in a wide range of mafic igneous rocks from around the solar system. The fractionation, or accumulation, of olivine often exerts a major control on the observed variations in magma and whole-rock compositions. We performed experiments on a synthetic Hawaiian picrite and examined the olivine (ol)-liquid (liq) 2+ partitioning of Mg and Fe . These experiments show that the exchange coefficient, KD, ol liq Fe2+-Mg=(FeO/MgO) /(FeO/MgO) , by weight, is 0.345±0.009 (1σ) and is independent of temperature and liquid composition. Using this result, we estimate that parental liquids for tholeiites from Kilauea, Mauna Loa, and Mauna Kea have approximately 19-21 wt. % MgO. Published experiments on model Martian compositions suggest that for the Fe- enriched and Al-depleted Martian basalts a slightly higher KD, Fe2+-Mg of 0.36 is more appropriate. Using this value we conclude that the olivine-phyric shergottites Y 980459, NWA 5789, 2990, and EETA 79001 are possible liquid compositions (others are not); if the canonical KD, Fe2+-Mg of 0.30 were used, we would have concluded that none of the bulk meteorites represent liquids. The behavior of Ni is nearly unique among most other major and trace elements: it is compatible in olivine. This compatibility is useful in constraining the evolution of lavas, as their Ni contents will be very sensitive to the fractionation or accumulation of olivine. We performed experiments investigating the partitioning of Ni between a liquid and olivine of approximately constant composition over a range of temperatures and pressures. These experiments successfully separate the effects of composition from those of temperature and pressure, showing that, for our liquid with ~ 18 wt. % MgO, the ol-liq Ni partition v coefficient (by wt.) decreases from 5.0 to 3.8 as the temperature and pressure increase from 1400 to 1550°C and 1-atm to 3.0 GPa, respectively. We show that this temperature and pressure effect may contribute to the generation of high-NiO olivines observed in Hawaiian and other ocean-island basalts. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ............................................................................................ iii Abstract ............................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................ vi List of Tables and Figures .................................................................................. ix Chapter I Introduction ................................................................................................. I-1 References ................................................................................................... I-6 Chapter II Fe-Mg Partitioning Between Olivine and High-Magnesian Melts and the Nature of Hawaiian Parental Liquids .......................................... II-1 Abstract ...................................................................................................... II-2 Introduction ................................................................................................ II-3 Experimental and Analytical Techniques ................................................. II-6 Starting Composition .......................................................................... II-6 Experimental Techniques .................................................................... II-8 Analytical Techniques ....................................................................... II-10 Experimental Results ............................................................................... II-12 Phase Compositions .......................................................................... II-12 Phase Proportions ............................................................................. II-16 Olivine-Liquid Fe2+-Mg Exchange Coefficients .............................. II-19 Discussion ................................................................................................ II-21 Comparison of Our Data with Exchange Coefficients from Literature-Based Olivine-Liquid Pairs ............................................. II-22 Hawaiian Parental Liquids ............................................................... II-31 Conclusions .............................................................................................. II-36 Acknowledgements ................................................................................. II-38 References ................................................................................................ II-38 Supplementary Material .......................................................................... II-66 1. An Assessment of the Experimental Data of Roeder and Emslie (1970) ......................................................................................... II-66 1.1 Introduction ................................................................................. II-66 1.2 KD,Fe2+-Mg as Determined by Roeder and Emslie (1970) ............ II-68 1.3 Some Basic Acceptance Criteria for Roeder and Emslie's Experiments ....................................................................................... II-71 1.4 Mass Balance Calculations on Roeder and Emslie’s (1970) Data ....................................................................................... II-72 1.5 Discussion ................................................................................... II-83 1.6 Concluding Thoughts .................................................................. II-85 2. Projection of Olivine-Liquid Exchange Coefficients ....................... II-86 vii 3. Comparison of Our Data with Predictions of the Models of Ford et al. (1983) and Toplis (2005) ..................................................... II-89 4. References for Sections 1-3 ............................................................... II-92 5. Experimental Database References ................................................... II-98 Chapter III Fe-Mg Partitioning Between Olivine and Basaltic Martian Melts ........ III-1 Abstract ..................................................................................................... III-2 Introduction ............................................................................................... III-3 Experiments on Martian Compositions ................................................... III-4 One-Atmosphere Martian Experiments ............................................. III-4 High-Pressure Martian Experiments ................................................. III-5 Compositional Dependence of KD, Fe2+-Mg ......................................... III-8 Comparison with Other One-Atmoshpere Experiments ......................... III-9 Olivine-Phyric Shergottites .................................................................... III-10 Using KD, Fe2+-Mg to Estimate Oxygen Fugacity ..................................... III-11 Conclusions ............................................................................................. III-12 References ............................................................................................... III-14 Chapter IV The Temperature and Pressure Dependence of Nickel Partitioning between Olivine and Silicate Melt ......................................................... IV-1 Abstract .................................................................................................... IV-2 Introduction .............................................................................................