Collaborative Research: Experimental and computational constraints on the isotope fractionation of Mossbauer-inactive elements in mantle minerals

Isotope compositions of deep-earth minerals provide crucial constraints on the earth’s internal structure and chemical evolution. The isotope compositions of deep-earth minerals are controlled by a process named isotope fractionation, in which different isotopes redistribute between different minerals under various pressures and temperatures. There are three conventional ways to constrain equilibrium isotope fractionation in deep-earth minerals, namely theoretical calculation, mass spectroscopy, and nuclear resonance scattering. However, each method has its own challenges. Theoretical calculation is limited by physical approximations used in the model and has to be benchmarked by experiments; mass spectroscopy has difficulty in determining the attainment of equilibrium and is time-consuming; and nuclear resonance scattering can only be applied to the few Mössbauer-active elements. This proposal describes a novel multidisciplinary study on the isotope fractionations of deep-earth minerals that are difficult to be constrained by conventional experimental approaches, through collaborative and synergetic efforts by combining state-of-the-art X-ray spectroscopy with theoretical calculations. The researcher's approach is experimentally benchmarked, time-efficient, directly reflects the equilibrium isotope fractionation, and can be applied to nearly all elements. They aim to answer the following questions with their proposed study: 1) How do the Mössbauer-inactive elements in deep-earth minerals redistribute with pressure, temperature, and crystal structure? 2) How to constrain the fractionation of Mössbauer-inactive elements in deep earth solid solutions efficiently? and 3) How does vibrational anharmonicity affect the isotope fractionation in mantle silicates? The project will support three early to mid-career researchers to continue their research at the University of Hawaii at Maona (Zhang and B. Chen) and Purdue University (M. Chen). Through this project, the team will develop both experimental instruments at a national user facility and open-source codes for computation, and the research suite will be available to domestic and international researchers in earth sciences and beyond. Undergraduate assistants and postdoc scholars will be involved in this project. This project is also committed to establishing the career development pathways for the involved early-career researchers, pushing for the gender and racial equality in geoscience, and broadening the participation in STEM of traditionally underrepresented minorities. The fractionation of the isotopes of constituent elements of mantle minerals at high P-T conditions are considered the ramifications of the differentiation of the Earth, offering crucial clues for the mantle’s composition and chemical evolution. Previous studies on the isotope fractionation of Mössbauer-inactive elements between minerals were either measured using mass spectroscopy in which the attainment of equilibrium requires additional caution, or estimated from theoretical calculations without corroboration from experiments. The researchers have demonstrated that the reduced partition function ratio (β-factor) of tetracoordinated Si can be constrained by theoretical-calculation-calibrated in-situ high-T SXD experiments. In this proposed project, they will extend the method to determine experimentally constrained β-factors of hexacoordinated Si in non-quenchable deep-earth minerals for the first time. They will also tackle challenges to establish an efficient approach to determine β-factors in solid solutions by theoretical calculations, which are to be benchmarked by SXD experiments and thus allows them to investigate the isotope fractionation of hexacoordinated Ti in deep-earth minerals. Their proposed combined approach circumvents direct theoretical modeling of solid solutions, which significantly reduces computational costs. Using the combined approaches of experiments and theoretical modeling, the correction to Si β-factor in hydrous phyllosilicates induced by the vibrational anharmonicity will be investigated. The proposed experimentally benchmarked machine learning framework to establish a highly accurate yet efficient model will allow them to provide reliable estimations of Si β-factor in anharmonic mineral systems. Though they only propose to study select Mössbauer-inactive elements (Si & Ti) in this proposal, the same approach can be extended to other elements such as C, O, Mg, and Ca. All the three proposed tasks will build the foundation for a complete landscape of isotope distribution in mantle minerals, and will enhance understanding of the Earth’s isotopic composition and in turn its chemical evolution. This project is jointly funded by Cooperative Studies of the Earth's Deep Interior (CSEDI) and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.