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Science 8 March 2002:
Vol. 295. no. 5561, pp. 1885 - 1887
DOI: 10.1126/science.1065998
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Reports

Water in Earth's Lower Mantle

Motohiko Murakami,1* Kei Hirose,1 Hisayoshi Yurimoto,1 Satoru Nakashima,2 Naoto Takafuji1

Secondary ion mass spectrometry measurements show that Earth's representative lower mantle minerals synthesized in a natural peridotitic composition can dissolve considerable amounts of hydrogen. Both MgSiO3-rich perovskite and magnesiowüstite contain about 0.2 weight percent (wt%) H2O, and CaSiO3-rich perovskite contains about 0.4 wt% H2O. The OH absorption bands in Mg-perovskite and magnesiowüstite were also confirmed with the use of infrared microspectroscopic measurements. Earth's lower mantle may store about five times more H2O than the oceans.

1 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8551, Japan.
2 Interactive Research Center of Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8551, Japan.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mmurakam{at}geo.titech.ac.jp

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