Sulphides - Economically important geochemical messengers from the mantle (NERC Grant NE/L010828/1)
The project is aimed at understanding how a number of economically and geologically important chemical elements partition themselves between the silicates of the outer parts of the Earth and sulphides, minerals and liquids rich in sulphur. Although sulphur is not very abundant in the Earth, it has a powerful impact on the behaviour of a wide range of elements in Earth's crust and underlying mantle. For example, the majority of ore bodies rich in nickel, copper, gold and platinum are sulphides. Many of them are formed when sulphides separate from molten silicates in volcanic areas. A principal aim of my project is to experimentally reproduce the conditions under which sulphides separate and to determine how they extract the economically important elements from the host volcanic rocks. A second aim is to use my experimental results to determine whether or not a large mass of sulphide was extracted from the molten earth early in its history (4500 million years ago) and dissolved into the metallic core. In order to study how elements are distributed into sulphide I perform experiments at high pressures and temperatures, typically 15000 atmospheres pressure and 1400 degrees C in a large hydraulic press. After treatment at high pressure and temperature, the samples (typically about 1x1x1 millimeters) are rapidly cooled to room temperature and pressure and examined using a range of microanalytical techniques. The latter enables me to resolve chemical composition on the scale of 10 microns (or 10 millionth's of a meter).
nonGeographicDataset
https://www.bgs.ac.uk/services/ngdc/accessions/index.html#item40949
function: download
http://data.bgs.ac.uk/id/dataHolding/13606759
eng
NE/L010828/1
geoscientificInformation
publication
2008-06-01
Geochemistry
Chemistry
Volcanic rocks
Sulphides
revision
2011
NERC_DDC
publication
2015-05
notApplicable
For lineage details see published paper; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X15003015
publication
2011
false
See the referenced specification
publication
2010-12-08
false
See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:323:0011:0102:EN:PDF
The copyright of materials derived from the British Geological Survey's work is vested in the Natural Environment Research Council [NERC]. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a retrieval system of any nature, without the prior permission of the copyright holder, via the BGS Intellectual Property Rights Manager. Use by customers of information provided by the BGS, is at the customer's own risk. In view of the disparate sources of information at BGS's disposal, including such material donated to BGS, that BGS accepts in good faith as being accurate, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) gives no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the quality or accuracy of the information supplied, or to the information's suitability for any use. NERC/BGS accepts no liability whatever in respect of loss, damage, injury or other occurence however caused.
Earth Sciences
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3AN
United Kingdom
pointOfContact
Earth Sciences
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3AN
United Kingdom
principalInvestigator
British Geological Survey
Environmental Science Centre,Keyworth
NOTTINGHAM
NG12 5GG
United Kingdom
+44 115 936 3100
pointOfContact
2021-12-01