XANES study of Fe alloys end-members under high pressure

Seismic data from the Earth’s core and different accretion scenarios implicate the presence of elements lighter than Fe or Ni to explain the observed seismic density deficit. Here we propose to study in detail the compression behaviour of iron-compounds relevant for the Earth’s core (FeO, Fe3C, Fe7C3, FeS, Fe3S, FeSi) using high energy-resolved X-ray Absorption Near Edges Spectroscopy (XANES) up to 150 GPa. Such data are presently not available due to experimental difficulties, but are fundamental for constraining the Earth’s core composition. We plan to use the new compression data on endmembers to develop machine learning programming based on artificial intelligence in collaboration with the University of Toronto.