Simplicity in melt densification in multicomponent magmatic reservoirs in Earth’s interior revealed by multinuclear magnetic resonance

Abstract

Pressure-induced changes in properties of multicomponent silicate melts in magma oceans controlled chemical differentiation of the silicate earth and the composition of partial melts that might have formed hidden reservoirs. Although melt properties show complex pressure dependences, the melt structures at high pressure and the atomistic origins of these changes are largely unknown because of their complex pressure–composition dependence, intrinsic to multicomponent magmatic melts. Chemical constraints such as the nonbridging oxygen (NBO) content at 1 atm, rather than the structural parameters for melt polymerization, are commonly used to account for pressure-induced changes in the melt properties. Here, we show that the pressure-induced NBO fraction in diverse silicate melts show a simple and general trend where all the reported experimental NBO fractions at high pressure converge into a single decaying function. The pressure-induced changes in the NBO fraction account for and predict the silica content, nonlinear variations in entropy, and the transport properties of silicate melts in Earth’s mantle. The melt properties at high pressure are largely different from what can be predicted for silicate melts with a fixed NBO fraction at 1 atm. The current results with simplicity in melt polymerization at high pressure provide a molecular link to the chemical differentiation, possibly missing Si content in primary mantle through formation of hidden Si-rich mantle reservoirs.