transition zone

Flawed, Precious Stones Carry Clues From Deep in the Mantle

Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere creates extremely oxidizing conditions at the surface. Anyone who has seen rusty metal has observed oxidation in action: the oxygen steals electrons from the metal, creating crusty, red, iron oxide. Within Earth’s core, however, low levels of oxygen create much more reduced conditions. Intuitively, many researchers have supposed that Earth’s layers become less oxidized with depth, but few samples have emerged from the deep Earth to support or disprove this idea.

Content tagged with “transition zone”Showing 1-8 of 8 results

Flawed, Precious Stones Carry Clues From Deep in the Mantle 23 January 2018 Feature

In a new paper in Nature Geoscience [1], DCO researchers report the surprising news that iron in…

New mineral named in honor of DCO co-Executive Director Hemley 17 February 2017 Feature

Hemley’s colleagues, Luca Bindi, Ming Chen, and Xiande Xie, reported the discovery of the first…

New Analyses of Komatiites Shed Light on Formation and Earth’s Hydrated Mantle 1 April 2016 Feature

Over the course of Earth’s history, the mantle has changed, with slow cooling resulting in an…

Superdeep Diamonds Provide Evidence for a Melting Barrier to Deep Carbon Subduction 8 January 2016 Feature

Carbon is cycled from Earth’s surface to its depths, emerging through the crust from volcanoes, and…

Pyroxenite Inclusions in Transition Zone Diamonds: a Window into Deep Earth 20 October 2015 Feature

“Diamonds are forever,” and so are the tiny mineral inclusions encapsulated by diamonds (pictured…

Water in Earth’s Transition Zone Directly Measured 13 March 2014 Feature

Quantifying the water content of Earth’s mantle transition zone (between the upper and lower mantle…

Advances in Understanding Diamond Geology 27 February 2014 Feature

Natural diamonds and their inclusions provide crucial information over a range of depths for…

Magnesite as a Deep Carbon Reservoir 15 February 2011 Feature

Mantle rocks show evidence of minerals made of carbon with different oxidation states -- minerals…