EXPERIMENTAL PETROCHEMISTRY OF SOME HIGHLY SIDEROPHILE ELEMENTS AT HIGH TEMPERATURES, AND SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR CORE FORMATION AND THE MANTLES EARLY HISTORY

Abstract

The highly siderophile elements (HSE's: Ru, Rh, Pd, Re, Os, Ir, Pt and Au) and those elements with distribution coefficients between Fe-rich metal and silicate phases which exceed 10⁴. The large magnitude of these distribution coefficients makes them exceedingly difficult to measure experimentally. We describe a new experimental campaign aimed at obtaining reliable values of DMmets/sil melt for selected HSE's indirectly, by measuring the solubilities of the pure metals (or simple HSE alloys) in haplobasaltic melts as a function of oxygen fugacity.