Density and sound velocity of liquid Fe-S alloys at Earth's outer core P-T conditions
2020 (English)In: American Mineralogist, ISSN 0003-004X, E-ISSN 1945-3027, Vol. 105, no 9, p. 1349-1354Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Pressure-temperature-volume (P-T-V) data on liquid iron-sulfur (Fe-S) alloys at the Earth's outer core conditions (similar to 136 to 330 GPa, similar to 4000 to 7000 K) have been obtained by first-principles molecular dynamics simulations. We developed a thermal equation of state (EoS) composed of Murnaghan and Mie-Gruneisen-Debye expressions for liquid Fe-S alloys. The density and sound velocity are calculated and compared with Preliminary Reference Earth Model (PREM) to constrain the S concentration in the outer core. Since the temperature at the inner core boundary (TICB) has not been measured precisely (4850 similar to 7100 K), we deduce that the S concentration ranges from 10 similar to 14 wt% assuming S is the only light element. Our results also show that Fe-S alloys cannot satisfy the seismological density and sound velocity simultaneously and thus S element is not the only light element. Considering the geophysical and geochemical constraints, we propose that the outer core contains no more than 3.5 wt%S, 2.5 wt%O, or 3.8 wt% Si. In addition, the developed thermal EoS can be utilized to calculate the thermal properties of liquid Fe-S alloys, which may serve as the fundamental parameters to model the Earth's outer core.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MINERALOGICAL SOC AMER , 2020. Vol. 105, no 9, p. 1349-1354
Keywords [en]
Earth's outer core, liquid Fe-S alloy, first-principles molecular dynamics, sound velocity, equation of state
National Category
Condensed Matter Physics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-284284DOI: 10.2138/am-2020-7349ISI: 000573885100007Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85093098532OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-284284DiVA, id: diva2:1479144
Note
QC 20201026
2020-10-262020-10-262024-03-15Bibliographically approved