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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Fe-periclase reactivity at Earth's lower mantle conditions: Ab-initio geochemical modelling

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Intrinsic and extrinsic stability of the (Mg, Fe) O solid mixture in the Fe-Mg-Si-O system at high P, T conditions relevant to the Earth's mantle is investigated by the combination of quantum mechanical calculations (Hartree-26 Fock/DFT hybrid scheme), cluster expansion techniques and statistical thermodynamics. Iron in the (Mg, Fe) O binary mixture is assumed to be either in the low spin (LS) or in the high spin (HS) state. Un-mixing at solid state is observed only for the LS condition in the 23-42 GPa pressure range, whereas HS does not give rise to un-mixing. LS (Mg, Fe) O un-mixings are shown to be able to incorporate iron by subsolidus reactions with a reservoir of a virtual bridgmanite composition, for a maximum total enrichment of similar to 0.22 FeO. At very high P (up to 130/3150 GPa/K), a predominant (similar to 0.7 phase proportion), iron-rich Fe-periclase mixture (Mg0.50Fe0.50) O is formed, and it coexists, at constrained phase composition conditions, with two iron-poor assemblages [(Mg0.90Fe0.10) O and (Mg0.825Fe0.175)O]. These theoretical results agree with the compositional variability and frequency of occurrence observed in lower mantle Fe-periclase from diamond inclusions and from HP-HT synthesis products. The density difference among the Fe-periclase phases increases up to similar to 10%, between 24 and 130 GPa. The calculated bulk Fe/Mg partitioning coefficient between the bridgmanite reservoir and Fe-periclase, Kd, is 0.64 at 24 GPa; it then drops to 0.19 at 80 GPa, and becomes quasi-invariant (0.18-0.16) in the lowermost portion of the Earth's mantle (similar to 80-130 GPa). These Kd-values represent an approximate estimate for the Fe/Mg-partitioning between actual bridgmanite and Fe-periclase. Consequently, our Kd-values agree with experimental measurements and theoretical determinations, hinting that iron preferentially dissolves in periclase with respect to all the other iron-bearing phases of the lower mantle. The continuous change up to 80 GPa (similar to 2000 km depth) of the products (compositions and phase proportions) over the MgO-FeO binary causes geochemical heterogeneities throughout the lower mantle, but it does not give rise to any sharp discontinuity. In this view, anomalies like the ULVZs, explained with a local and abrupt change of density, do not seem primarily ascribable to the mixing behavior and reactivity of (Mg, Fe) O at subsolidus. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.