Experimental Investigation of Mercury's Outer Core

Electrical and electron microprobe data collected in manuscript entitled “Experimental Investigation of Mercury's Outer Core” by A. Pommier (GRL, 2025).

The spreadsheet lists all the electrical measurements shown in the manuscript and the electron microprobe traverses in core-mantle boundary analogs (Figure 1 of manuscript).
The file consists of four tabs: EMPAtraverses, ElectricalData_CMBAnalogs, ElectricalData_CoreAnalogs, and ThermalConductivityEstimates.

The reader is referred to the manuscript for details about the experimental and analytical procedures as well as the results.

File structure:

Tab entitled "EMPAtraverses": electron microprobe analyses across three retrieved samples from experiments at 5 GPa and 1973 K. The experiments are BBC106, BBC100, and BBC110. For each experiment, data are listed for two traverses: one in the silicate portion of the sample, one in the metal portion. Each traverse is vertical, from the Ta electrode to the silicate-metal interface. The content of different elements (C, Na, Mg, etc) is listed as a function of distance. Contents are in at.%, and distance is in micron.

Tab entitled "ElectricalData_CMBAnalogs": Electrical data from the six experiments performed on core-mantle boundary analogs at an applied pressure of 5 GPa. There are six columns for each experiment (BBC XXX): temperature T (in Celsius degrees); temperature (in K); electrical resistance R of the sample, corrected from electrode contribution (in ohm); corresponding electrical resistivity values (2 columns; in ohm-m and microhm-cm); and the annealing duration (in min).

Tab entitled "ElectricalData_CoreAnalogs": Electrical data from the six experiments performed on outer core analogs at an applied pressure of 5 GPa. There are five columns for each experiment (BBC XXX): temperature T in Celsius degrees; temperature (in K); electrical resistance R of the sample, corrected from electrode contribution (in ohm); and corresponding electrical resistivity values (2 columns; in ohm-m and microhm-cm).

Tab entitled "ThermalConductivityEstimates": Thermal conductivity estimates k (in W/m.K) of Mercury's liquid outer core from electrical measurements. The tab shows estimates from five electrical experiments on core analogs (BBC114, BBC101, BBC104, BBC103, and BBC105). The chemical system (iron alloy) of each experiment is listed below the experiment number. Calculations are shown for outer core temperature estimates (in K; column 1) at a specific depth (expressed as radius (in km; column 2) and pressure (in GPa; column 3). For each core analog composition, thermal conductivity is calculated for the specific temperature (columns k(T)) and is also corrected for the effect of pressure (columns k(T,P)). The calculation of k(T) is a function of the electrical resistivity of the alloy, taken here at 2100 K. This electrical resistivity value is listed for each experiment below the chemical system (in ohm-m).