Stability and Elasticity of High Iron and Aluminum Post-Perovskite Phases and Their Implications for the D" Layer

To evaluate the iron and aluminum effects on the post-perovskite phase at deep mantle conditions, it is important to study the potential mantle silicates containing both iron and aluminum. In this study, three different compositions of natural garnet along pyrope-almandine join, Pyr21Alm73Gr5, Pyr43Alm54Gr2, Pyr58Alm38Gr3, were used as starting materials to investigate the stability and elasticity of high iron- and aluminum-bearing post-perovskite phase at deep mantle conditions. In situ high-pressure and high- temperature experiments were conducted at beamline 13-ID-D of GSECARS, Advanced Photon Source. A monochromatic beam with a wavelength of 0.3044 Å and a MAR CCD detector were used for X-ray diffraction data collections. Samples were loaded in the symmetrical diamond-anvil cells and heated by the double-sided laser heating system. Our results showed that the post-perovskite phase can be successfully synthesized from three different compositions at pressure greater than 160 GPa and temperature higher than 1600 K. This indicates that the post-perovskite phase can simultaneously accommodate high aluminum and high iron contents. However, Al2O3-post-perovskite phase can also be observed from some runs for Pyr43Alm54Gr2 and Pyr58Alm38Gr3, showing that there is actually a limit for incorporating the aluminum into the post-perovskite phase but not for iron. In addition, we also found that the volume of post- perovskite phases can also be affected by the incorporated amount of iron. Our pressure-volume results showed that high-iron post-perovskite phases have larger volumes and the iron effect is greater at pressure above 120 GPa.