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Science 11 January 2002:
Vol. 295. no. 5553, pp. 313 - 315
DOI: 10.1126/science.1066932
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Reports

Iron-Silicon Alloy in Earth's Core?

Jung-Fu Lin,1* Dion L. Heinz,12 Andrew J. Campbell,1 James M. Devine,1 Guoyin Shen3

We have investigated the phase relations in the iron-rich portion of the iron-silicon (Fe-Si) alloys at high pressures and temperatures. Our study indicates that Si alloyed with Fe can stabilize the body-centered cubic (bcc) phase up to at least 84 gigapascals (compared to ~10 gigapascals for pure Fe) and 2400 kelvin. Earth's inner core may be composed of hexagonal close-packed (hcp) Fe with up to 4 weight percent Si, but it is also conceivable that the inner core could be a mixture of a Si-rich bcc phase and a Si-poor hcp phase.

1 Department of the Geophysical Sciences,
2 James Franck Institute,
3 Consortium for Advanced Radiation Sources, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: afu{at}geosci.uchicago.edu

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