It has been revealed that the environment inside the early Earth was controlled by oxygen concentration – a step towards elucidating the evolutionary process of the Earth –
Summary
An international research team led by Associate Professor Takayuki Ishii of the Institute for Planetary Materials, Okayama University, Japan, Dr. Yanhao Lin of Center for High pressure Science and technology Advanced research, China, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Bayerisches Geoinstitut, University of Bayreuth, Germany, conducted high-pressure melting experiments of Earth’s mantle rocks under high oxygen concentrations and found that the melting temperatures under high oxygen concentrations were significantly lower than those under low oxygen concentrations expected in the early mantle.
This result indicates that the seafloor temperature of the magma ocean in the early Earth, which is considered to have reached a depth of more than 1000 km, is higher than previously expected. This suggests that the cooling process of the early Earth and the Earth’s core formation model need to be revised.
The results of this research were published as an Article in the journal Nature Geoscience on July 16, 2024 (local time).
For more details, see the Okayama University press release [ JP | EN ].
Reference
Title: Melting at the base of a terrestrial magma ocean controlled by oxygen fugacity
Journal: Nature geoscience
Authors: Yanhao Lin, Takayuki Ishii, Wim van Westrenen, Tomoo Katsura, Ho-Kwang Mao
DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01495-1
