H 2 O solubility in basalt at upper mantle conditions

This study presents a new experimental approach for determining H2O solubility in basaltic melt at upper mantle conditions. Traditional solubility experiments are limited to pressures of ~600 MPa or less because it is difficult to reliably quench silicate melts containing greater than ~10 wt% dissolved H2O. To overcome this limitation, our approach relies on the use of secondary ion mass spectrometry to measure the concentration of H dissolved in olivine and on using the measured H in olivine as a proxy for the concentration of H2O in the co-existing basaltic melt. The solubility of H2O in the melt is determined by performing a series of experiments at a single pressure and temperature with increasing amounts of liquid H2O added to each charge. The point at which the concentration of H in the olivine first becomes independent of the amount of initial H2O content of the charge (added + adsorbed H2O) indicates its solubility in the melt. Experiments were conducted by packing basalt powder into a capsule fabricated from San Carlos olivine, which was then pressure-sealed inside a Ni outer capsule. Our experimental results indicate that at 1000 MPa and 1200 °C, the solubility of H2O in basaltic melt is 20.6 ± 0.9 wt% (2 × standard deviation). This concentration is considerably higher than predicted by most solubility models but defines a linear relationship between H2O fugacity and the square of molar H2O solubility when combined with solubility data from lower pressure experiments. Further, our solubility determination agrees with melting point depression determined experimentally by Grove et al. (2006) for the H2O-saturated peridotite solidus at 1000 MPa. Melting point depression calculations were used to estimate H2O solubility in basalt along the experimentally determined H2O-saturated peridotite solidus. The results suggest that a linear relationship between H2O fugacity and the square of molar solubility exists up to ~1300 MPa, where there is an inflection point and solubility begins to increase less strongly with increasing H2O fugacity.