Machine Learning Investigation of Clinopyroxene Compositions to Evaluate and Predict Mantle Metasomatism Worldwide

Abstract

Plain Language SummaryClinopyroxene is a major mineral in Earth's upper mantle. Previous studies have attempted to discriminate between reactions modifying the mantle by plotting clinopyroxene major and trace element compositions in two‐dimensional (2‐D) diagrams. However, these 2‐D methods show poor accuracy when applied to global datasets. Therefore, we suggest a machine learning approach to evaluate clinopyroxene compositional data in higher dimensions. Our results demonstrate that machine learning can significantly improve the accuracy of clinopyroxene compositional predictions over classical methods utilizing elemental ratios. Furthermore, the application of our algorithm to a global clinopyroxene dataset suggests that mantle metasomatism is globally widespread.