Evidence for high-pressure core-mantle differentiation from the metal–silicate partitioning of lithophile and weakly-siderophile elements

Abstract

Liquid Fe metal–liquid silicate partition coefficients for the lithophile and weakly-siderophile elements Ta, Nb, V, Cr, Si, Mn, Ga, In and Zn have been measured in multianvil experiments performed from 2 to 24 GPa, 2023–2873 K and at oxygen fugacities of −1.3 to −4.2 log units relative to the iron-wüstite buffer. Compositional effects of light elements dissolved in the metal liquid (S, C) have been examined and experiments were performed in both graphite and MgO capsules, specifically to address the effect of C solubility in Fe-metal on siderophile element partitioning. The results were used to examine whether there is categorical evidence that a significant portion of metal–silicate equilibration occurred under very high pressures during core-mantle fractionation on Earth. Although the depletion of V from the mantle due to core formation is significantly greater than that of Nb, our results indicate that both elements have similar siderophile tendencies under reducing conditions at low pressures. With increasing pressure, however, Nb becomes less siderophile than V, implying that average metal–silicate equilibration pressures of at least 10–40 GPa are required to explain the Nb/V ratio of the mantle. Similarly the moderately-siderophile, volatile element ratios Ga/Mn and In/Zn are chondritic in the mantle but both volatility and core-mantle equilibration at low pressure would render these ratios strongly sub-chondritic. Our results indicate that pressures of metal–silicate partitioning exceeding 30–60 GPa would be required to render these element ratios chondritic in the mantle. These observations strongly indicate that metal–silicate equilibration must have occurred at high pressures, and therefore support core-formation models that involve deep magma oceans. Moreover, our results allow us to exclude models that envisage primarily low-pressure (<1 GPa) equilibration in relatively small planetary bodies. We also argue that the core cannot contain significant U as this would require metal–silicate equilibration at oxygen fugacities low enough for significant amounts of Ta to have also been extracted from the mantle. Likewise, as In is more siderophile than Pb but similarly volatile and also quite chalcophile it would have been difficult for Pb to enter the core without reversing the relative depletions of these elements in the mantle unless metal–silicate equilibration occurred at high pressures >20 GPa.