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Updated: Jul 24, 2026

Simulation of the Planetary Interior Differentiation Processes in the Laboratory
Published on: November 15, 2013
Structure and freezing of MgSiO3 liquid in Earth's lower mantle
1Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. stixrude@umich.edu
Abstract:
First-principles molecular-dynamics simulations show that over the pressure regime of Earth's mantle the mean silicon-oxygen coordination number of magnesium metasilicate liquid changes nearly linearly from 4 to 6. The density contrast between liquid and crystal decreases by a factor of nearly 5 over the mantle pressure regime and is 4% at the core-mantle boundary. The ab initio melting curve, obtained by integration of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, yields a melting temperature at the core-mantle boundary of 5400 +/- 600 kelvins.
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