Understanding the Deep Mantle: Experimental Petrology at very High Pressures

A novel super-hard diamond composite material will be used to double the pressures accessible to experimental investigation under carefully controlled conditions in the multi-anvil apparatus, in order to study the Earth's lower mantle (below 670 km depth). Anticipated results include a better understanding of how the Earth's core formed, how the mineralogy of the lower mantle changes with depth and with redox state, and what controls the strength of the lower mantle, and thus how the mantle convects and how long-lived geochemical heterogeneities might be preserved.