July 25, 2024 - Jessica M Warren
Suzanne Birner’s study on mantle fO2 published in Nature
A Nature paper led by former lab member Suzanne Birner was published yesterday. The study describes rocks from the seafloor collected in the Arctic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. These peridotite samples have unusually low oxygen fugacity (a thermodynamic variable that describes an aspect of the system’s chemistry). In the study, we then use thermodynamic modeling to demonstrate that high temperatures and deep melting can create the really reducing signatures in these rocks.
This piece in the Smithsonian Magazine explains the study in more detail – and has this lovely photo of one of the rocks under a microscope:
Birner, S.K., E. Cottrell, F.A. Davis, and J.M. Warren, 2024. Deep, hot, ancient melting recorded by ultralow oxygen fugacity in peridotites, Nature, 631, 801-807, doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07603-w