The structural evolution of CaTiO3 perovskite with pressure and temperature

The travel times of seismic waves through the Earth’s interior provide one of the few direct constraints of mantle rocks, and if inverted using the thermoelastic properties of constiuent minerals can provide constraints on the chemistry, temperature and mineralogy of the deep Earth. CaSiO3 perovskite is the 3rd most abundant mineral in the lower mantle, but it is unrecoverable making it difficult to study. Instead, we propose to measure the PVT properties of CaTiO3 (which forms a solid solution with CaSiO3 at mantle conditions) to provide insight into the properties of this important mantle phase.