Thermodynamics of Fe–S at ultra-high pressure

Abstract

Earth's core is believed to consist of a solid inner core and an outer liquid core. Since the inner core is mostly solid iron, most geophysical work has focused on melting of pure iron at core conditions. The inner core density is well matched with seismological data if some S is added to iron. The available phase equilibrium experimental data in the binary Fe–S system to pressures as high as ~200GPa is used to create a thermodynamic database extending to core pressures that can be used to calculate the inner core density if S were the only other constituent. Such a calculation gives the maximum temperature of the solid inner core as 4428 (±500)K (363.85GPa, density=13.09g/cm3) with a sulfur content of ~15wt%. To be consistent with the seismically determined density, the outer liquid core requires mixing of yet another light element or elements; both oxygen and carbon are suitable.