An experimental study of serpentine decomposition at high pressure (4.5 GPa) was carried out to elucidate if water can be preserved in the system in the form other than structural admixtures in minerals. This problem is of interest because it is water that plays a leading role in the melting in a subducted slab and a mantle wedge. To estimate the possible content of an aqueous fluid in deep-seated rocks, a BARS pressless split-sphere apparatus was used in complex with thermobarogeochemistry and gas chromatography. It has been established that the serpentine decomposition is accompanied by the release of water, which concentrates in inclusions in the produced minerals (olivine and orthopyroxene) and their interstices. Chromatographic analysis with a stepwise heating of samples showed that most of the released water is localized in the interstices, and the rest is conserved in fluid inclusions in the minerals. The produced solid phases conserve 0.13 to 2.43 wt.% fluids as inclusions, with water amounting to 0.1–2.06 wt.%. The content of inclusions determined by microscopic examination falls in this region. Since the mobility of the fluid conserved as inclusions in the olivine and orthopyroxene is significantly lower than that in the interstices, this fluid might be better preserved in olivine-containing rocks subsided to depth.
Diamonds grown by high pressure high temperature process (HPHT) are usually characterized by yellow color and high contents of nitrogen. Introduction of Ti decreases nitrogen content in diamond. Understanding the formation of nitrogen-poor diamond is very important not for the progress of HPHT process only, but because these diamond varieties represent the rare natural stones, although their crystallization conditions have not been clarified yet. Here we studied the composition of fluid phase in synthetic diamonds. The experiments were performed using a high-pressure apparatus BARS at pressures 5.5–6.0 GPa and temperatures 1350–1400 °C. It was found that introduction of metallic Ti leads to concentration of nitrogen mainly as nitrogenated hydrocarbons. The hypothesis that elucidates the formation of low-nitrogen diamond in Fe–Ni is proposed: the presence of Ti leads to an increase of hydrogen fugacity in the metal melt which drastically reduces the nitrogen solubility. As a result, nitrogen concentrates in the form of complex hydrocarbon compounds, while diamond grows colorless and characterized by very low nitrogen content. It is suggested that the proposed mechanism acts the same way in the presence of other metals which are strong reducing agents.
Detailed mineralogical and melt and fluid inclusion constraints on magma storage, and the evolution of melts, are presented for the large-volume caldera eruption on the Vetrovoy Isthmus on Itutrup Island (Kuril Islands, Russia). The shallow magma reservoir beneath the Vetrovoy Isthmus is composed of a mush of plagio-rhyolitic melt, phenocrysts and the products of peritectic reaction(s). The melt appears to have formed as a result of partial melting of previously erupted rocks, which probably had andesitic to basaltic compositions and were metamorphosed into amphibole-bearing assemblages. The breakdown of amphibole in the partially melted precursor rocks led to the formation of early Mg-rich clino- and orthopyroxene, along with plagioclase and Fe–Ti oxides, and the release of aqueous fluids. Variations in fluid pressure are recorded by a strong increase of An contents in plagioclase. Crystallization took place at around 850°C with pressure ranging from 0·9 to 3 kbar. This study demonstrates that dacitic magmas erupted during the course of a 20 kyr voluminous eruption were the result of mixing between plagio-rhyolitic partial melts and the breakdown reaction minerals (i.e. pyroxenes, plagioclase and Fe–Ti oxides). Plagioclase and quartz were the last minerals to crystallize from these melts prior to eruption.
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