Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2026

Metal-silicate Partitioning at High Pressure and Temperature: Experimental Methods and a Protocol to Suppress Highly Siderophile Element Inclusions
Published on: June 13, 2015
Osmium-187 enrichment in some plumes: evidence for core-mantle interaction?
Abstract:
Calculations with data for asteroidal cores indicate that Earth's outer core may have a rhenium/osmium ratio at least 20 percent greater than that of the chondritic upper mantle, potentially leading to an outer core with an osmium-187/osmium-188 ratio at least 8 percent greater than that of chondrites. Because of the much greater abundance of osmium in the outer core relative to the mantle, even a small addition of metal to a plume ascending from the D" layer would transfer the enriched isotopic signature to the mixture. Sources of certain plume-derived systems seem to have osmium-187/osmium-l88 ratios 5 to 20 percent greater than that for chondrites, consistent with the ascent of a plume from the core-mantle boundary.
Related Concept Videos
Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS): Interferences
Sulfur Assimilation
Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy: Principle
The ions and electrons produced interact with the fluctuating magnetic field created by a water-cooled...
Magnetic Susceptibility and Permeability
When diamagnetic materials are placed under an external magnetic field, the moments opposite to the field are induced. Hence, the susceptibility for diamagnets has a minimal negative value of 10-5–10-6. Since...
Nuclear Stability
To hold positively charged protons together in the...
Atomic Emission Spectroscopy: Interference

