Experimental constraints on the behaviour of highly siderophile elements during planetary differentiation

高亲铁性或亲铁性元素（HSE）包括更常见的贵金属（铂、钯、铑和金）以及外来品种（铼、锇、钌和铱）。它们都对社会有用，因为它们具有特殊的热、表面和电子特性。HSE对地质学家来说也很有价值，因为它们的独特之处在于它们倾向于避免氧气，并与硫、其他“类硫”元素和铁结合。因此，HSE对行星分离成金属核、地幔和地壳的过程非常敏感。我的研究项目涉及这些过程的实验室模拟，特别关注于确定HSE如何集中在正常背景水平之上；它可能是由铁金属、其他矿物或不寻常的铁硫（硫化物）熔体形成的。计划研究的一个主要重点将是评估硫化物熔体和“类硫”金属砷、铋、碲和硒的化合物从岩浆中提取HSE的效率。这些信息有助于我们了解这些元素如何在地壳矿床中集中HSE。对硫化物清除能力的了解也使得通过测量其他行星的表面熔岩（其硫化物已被深度清除）来盘点其HSE含量变得更加容易。此外，我们将确定铂的一些不寻常行为的起源，例如为什么它在地幔中如此丰富（而它应该全部在地核中），以及为什么一些岩浆中含有的铂远远超过预期。我们还计划扩展到一个新兴的研究领域，该领域涉及铁本身组成的细微变化，并模拟可能发生这种变化的过程。总而言之，这项工作旨在为使用HSE了解行星的形成和演化提供必要的信息。从这项研究中获得的资料对勘探和采矿工业也有价值，因为它提供了关于这些元素如何集中到经济水平以及它们可能以何种矿物形式出现的资料。

The highly siderophile, or iron-loving, elements (HSE) include the more familiar precious metals (platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold) as well as exotic varieties (rhenium, osmium, ruthenium and iridium). They are all useful to society, owing to exceptional thermal, surface and electronic properties. The HSE are also of value to geologists, as they are unique in their tendency to avoid oxygen, and bond to sulfur, as well as other "sulfur-like" elements, and iron. The HSE are therefore sensitive to the processes by which planets separate into a metallic core, mantle and crust. My research program involves laboratory simulation of these processes, with a specific focus on determining how the HSE get concentrated above normal background levels; be it by iron metal, other minerals, or unusual iron-sulfur (sulfide) melts. A major focus of the planned research will be to assess the efficiency of HSE extraction from magma by sulfide melt, and by compounds of the "sulfur-like" metals arsenic, bismuth, tellurium and selenium. This information helps us to understand how the HSE become concentrated by these elements in crustal mineral deposits. Knowledge of the sulfide scavenging capacity also makes it easier to inventory the HSE content of other planets from measurements of their surface lavas, whose sulfide has been removed at depth. In addition, we will determine the origin of some of the unusual behaviours of platinum, such as why it is so abundant in the Earth's mantle (when it should all be in the core) and why some magmas contain far more platinum than expected. We also plan to branch out into an emerging research area which deals with subtle variations in the composition of iron itself, and simulate the processes by which this may occur. In sum, this work seeks to provide the essential information for using the HSE to understand how planets form and evolve. Information gained from this research is also of value to the exploration and mining industry, as it provides information on how these elements may be concentrated to economic levels, and in what mineral forms they may occur.