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Science 10 November 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5801, pp. 970 - 974
DOI: 10.1126/science.1132485
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Reports

Transcrystalline Melt Migration and Earth's Mantle

Pierre Schiano,1* Ariel Provost,1 Roberto Clocchiatti,2 François Faure1{dagger}

Plate tectonics and volcanism involve the formation, migration, and interaction of magma and gas. Experiments show that melt inclusions subjected to a thermal gradient migrate through olivine crystals, under the kinetic control of crystal-melt interface mechanisms. Exsolved gas bubbles remain fixed and eventually separate from the melt. Scaled to thermal gradients in Earth's mantle and geological times, our results account for the grain-scale segregation of primitive melts, reinterpret CO2-rich fluid inclusions as escaped from melt, and question the existence of a free, deeply percolating fluid phase. Melt migration experiments also allow us to quantify crystal growth kinetics at very low undercoolings in conditions appropriate to many natural systems.

1 Laboratoire Magmas et Volcans, Observatoire de Physique du Globe, Université Blaise Pascal et CNRS, 5 rue Kessler, 63038 Clermont-Ferrand Cedex, France.
2 Laboratoire Pierre Süe, Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Saclay, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et CNRS, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.

{dagger} Present address: Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques, Université Henri Poincaré et CNRS, 15 rue Notre-Dame des Pauvres, 54501 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: schiano{at}opgc.univ-bpclermont.fr

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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A. J.R. Kent (2008)
Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry 69, 273-331
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The eclogite engine: Chemical geodynamics as a Galileo thermometer.
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)