Monitoring the compression of silicate melts by XAFS on minor elements at Earth’s lower mantle pressures

In this follow-up proposal, we will focus on the investigation of supercooled melts in-situ at temperatures above the glass transition, using a resistively heated diamond anvil cell. We plan to extend our dataset on the pressure and temperature (P/T) induced structural changes around the cations Strontium and Yttrium (earth alkaline and rare earth elements) contained in the melt and glasses at pressures relevant to the deep Earth’s mantle (up to 130 GPa) at temperatures of the super-cooled melt state, where the melt structure already relaxes to the extreme pressure. Resistive heating and the lower temperature will facilitate more stable conditions then by laser-heating.