U.S.-Germany Cooperative Research in Experimental Geochemistry at High Pressures and Temperatures

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This award supports Elisabeth McFarlane and Valerie Hillgren, two graduate students of Professor Michael Drake, University of Arizona, to travel to Germany to take advantage of an unique combination of facilities and personnel at the University of Bayreuth to carry out experimental geochemistry research. Professor Drake made an extended visit to the Geological Institute there in 1991. Now he has arranged for further related work to be carried out by his students under the guidance of his principal collaborator at Bayreuth, Dr. David Rubie. In addition to fruitful interactions with Dr. Rubie and other experts at the Geological Institute, the students will benefit from the availability of two highly advanced and very rare pieces of equipment: a multi-anvil press and an x-ray microdiffractometer. Both of these apparatus are invaluable in conducting ultrahigh pressure trace element partitioning experiments between various metal and silicate phase pairs. The results of their experiments will be applied to understanding the early thermal history and differentiation of the Earth and Mars, and the origin of the Moon. The principal research program of Professor Drake involves experimental studies of elemental partitioning among solid silicate, oxide, and metal phases and silicate and metallic melts at high pressures and temperatures. Knowledge of these partition coefficients is essential to the interpretation of elemental systematics in the mantle and mantle-derived materials. This bears specifically on the question of the formation and early differentiation of the Earth and the intimately associated problem of the origin of the moon.