Selected elastic moduli and their temperature derivatives for olivine and garnet with different Mg/(Mg+Fe) contents: Results from GHz ultrasonic interferometry

Ganglin Chen, Hartmut A. Spetzler, Ivan C. Getting, Akira Yoneda

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    19 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Selected P-wave acoustic travel times through single crystal samples of olivine and garnet with different Mg/(Mg+Fe) ratios were measured at elevated temperatures (from 293 K to 363 K) using a newly developed GHz ultrasonic interferometer. These high precision data allow us to examine aspects of the elasticity-composition systematics of olivine (forsterite-fayalite) and garnet (pyrope-almandine) solid solution series. For every 10% decrease in the Mg/(Mg+Fe) content, the P-velocity of olivine along the b-axis decreases about 3% and ∂lnC22/∂T decreases about 7%; for garnet ∂ln[C44 + (C11 + C12)/2]/∂T decreases about 6%. If such velocity-composition systematics are typical and hold at the P-T regime of the mantle, only a 3-4% variation in the Mg/(Mg+Fe) content of olivine is required to explain the lateral seismic velocity variation in the upper portion of the mantle within one tectonic region (dlnVp-1%), and 7-8% variation in the Mg/(Mg+Fe) content to explain the 2% lateral seismic velocity variation of the upper mantle globally.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)5-8
    Number of pages4
    JournalGeophysical Research Letters
    Volume23
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jan 1 1996

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Geophysics
    • Earth and Planetary Sciences(all)

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