Mineralogy articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large-scale eDMFT computation reveals that FeO undergoes a gradual orbitally selective insulator-metal transition across the extreme conditions of Earth’s interior, with implications for compositions and conductivity of the core-mantle boundary region.

    • Wai-Ga D. Ho
    • , Peng Zhang
    •  & Vasilije V. Dobrosavljevic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study reveals that in the Earth’s mid-mantle, ferropericlase (the second most abundant mineral) undergoes a major electronic reconfiguration. At the base of the mantle, an enrichment in silica may represent a crystallised ancient magma ocean.

    • Laura Cobden
    • , Jingyi Zhuang
    •  & Jeroen Tromp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multi-technique synchrotron measurements support the viability of solid FeO-rich structures at Earth’s mantle base. An order-disorder transition identified in the iron defect structure of FeO may lead to unique physical properties in the region.

    • Vasilije V. Dobrosavljevic
    • , Dongzhou Zhang
    •  & Jennifer M. Jackson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Radial cracks observed in minerals formed at ultrahigh pressure and now found at the Earth’s surface are explained by ultrafast decompression, which challenges the idea of fast and significant displacement of rocks during their exhumation.

    • Cindy Luisier
    • , Lucie Tajčmanová
    •  & Thibault Duretz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rapid compression experiments on quartz provide evidence for a metastable high-pressure phase with rosiaite structure. The phase forms as lamellae and breaks down to glass during decompression. These discoveries may solve the enigma of lamellar amorphization of quartz during impact events.

    • Christoph Otzen
    • , Hanns-Peter Liermann
    •  & Falko Langenhorst

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How complex organics form in a prebiotic world remains a missing key to establish where life emerged. The authors present a road to abiotic organic synthesis and diversification in hydrothermal contexts involving magmatism and rock hydration.

    • Muriel Andreani
    • , Gilles Montagnac
    •  & Bénédicte Ménez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Petrological studies along with volcano monitoring data relate the unusual 2019 explosive activity at Stromboli volcano (Italy) to deep magma recharges up to a few days prior the eruption and a direct link between deep and shallow magma reservoirs.

    • Chiara Maria Petrone
    • , Silvio Mollo
    •  & Mark Reagan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How confinement affects the growth of crystals is poorly understood. Experiments in which NaClO3 and CaCO3 crystals are grown close to a glass substrate now show that new molecular layers can form via the transport of mass through the liquid film at the crystal-substrate interface.

    • Felix Kohler
    • , Olivier Pierre-Louis
    •  & Dag Kristian Dysthe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lunar soils returned by China’s Chang’E−5 (CE5) mission record the unique information of solar wind essential to understanding the preservation and distribution of lunar surficial water. Here the authors report abundant water formed by solar wind implantation in minerals of CE5 lunar soils; the water content in CE5 lunar soils is estimated to be ~ 170 ppm.

    • Chuanjiao Zhou
    • , Hong Tang
    •  & Yuanyun Wen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Researchers at Newcastle University have discovered a mechanism by which earthquakes create bursts of hydrogen peroxide and oxygen in hot underground fractures. These may have played a vital role in the early evolution and origin of life on Earth.

    • Jordan Stone
    • , John O. Edgar
    •  & Jon Telling

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Habitability of exoplanet’s deepest oceans could be limited by the presence of high-pressure ices at their base. New work demonstrates that efficient chemical transport within deep planetary ice mantles is possible through significant salt incorporation within the high-pressure ice.

    • Baptiste Journaux

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mantle rocks can efficiently bind carbon by reaction with CO2 if fluid pathways remain open. This study of samples from Oman demonstrates that coupling of synchronous reaction and deformation facilitates fluid flow and massive carbon sequestration.

    • Manuel D. Menzel
    • , Janos L. Urai
    •  & Peter B. Kelemen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors report the discovery of salts and fresh organic-rich exposures in the Urvara basin, possibly linked to a late resurfacing of the crater floor. These results are consistent with a deep-seated brine/salt reservoir in the crust of Ceres.

    • A. Nathues
    • , M. Hoffmann
    •  & J. H. Pasckert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The co-evolution of oxygenation of the Earth’s atmosphere and lithosphere is still poorly constrained. However, the oxidation state of manganese minerals reveals that the redox state of Earth’s crust responds to changes in atmospheric oxygen following a ~66 million-year time lag.

    • Daniel R. Hummer
    • , Joshua J. Golden
    •  & Robert M. Hazen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chemical heterogeneities in Apollo sample 76535 constrain the magmatic cooling history of the lunar Mg-suite to <~ 20 My. Such rapid cooling is inconsistent with a large intrusive magma body and suggests formation by reactive melt infiltration.

    • William S. Nelson
    • , Julia E. Hammer
    •  & G. Jeffrey Taylor

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    Vast, ancient impact basins scattered mantle materials across the lunar surface. We review lunar evolution models to identify candidate mantle lithologies, then assess orbital observations to evalutae the current distribution of these materials and implications for fundamental planetary processes.

    • Daniel P. Moriarty III
    • , Nick Dygert
    •  & Noah E. Petro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This paper reveals that potassic alteration can be triggered by Na-rich fluids, indicating that pervasive sequential sodic and potassic alterations associated with mineralization in some of the world’s largest ore deposits may not necessarily reflect externally-driven changes in fluid alkali contents.

    • Gan Duan
    • , Rahul Ram
    •  & Joël Brugger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Meteorites from space often include denser polymorphs of their minerals, providing records of past hypervelocity collisions. An olivine mineral crystal was shock-compressed by a high-power laser, and its transformation into denser ringwoodite was time-resolved using an X-ray free electron laser.

    • Takuo Okuchi
    • , Yusuke Seto
    •  & Norimasa Ozaki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carbonate mineral aqueous solubility decreases as carbonates become more Mg-rich during subduction. Coupled with regional variations in amounts of carbon and water subducted, this explains discrepancies in estimates of carbon recycling, suggesting that only around a third returns to the surface.

    • Stefan Farsang
    • , Marion Louvel
    •  & Simon A. T. Redfern

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Arc olivines are commonly explained through a paradigm of core-to-rim sequential growth and oscillatory zoning is interpreted to represent magma mixing. Here the authors show Fo–Ni–P oscillatory zoned olivines can grow as out-of-sequence crystal frames and complex zoning can occur in closed systems.

    • Pablo Salas
    • , Philipp Ruprecht
    •  & Osvaldo Rabbia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Along the cold subduction geotherm, glaucophane remains stable down to pressure and temperature (P–T) conditions of ca. 240 km depth, whereas under the warm subduction geotherm, it dehydrates and breaks down into pyroxenes and silica between ca. 50 and 100 km depths.

    • Yoonah Bang
    • , Huijeong Hwang
    •  & Yongjae Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Albite is one of the major constituents in the Earth’s crust. Here, the authors report that under hydrous cold subduction conditions, albite undergoes breakdown into hydrated smectite and other phases, which release alkaline fluids into the mantle wedge.

    • Gil Chan Hwang
    • , Huijeong Hwang
    •  & Yongjae Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors report in-situ formation of jarosite witin the Talos Dome ice core (East Antarctica) and show that this ferric-potassium sulfate mineral is present in ice deeper than 1000 meters and progressively increases with depth. This has implications for the presence and formation mechanisms of jarosite observed on Mars.

    • Giovanni Baccolo
    • , Barbara Delmonte
    •  & Massimo Frezzotti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global resources of heavy Rare Earth Elements (REE) are dominantly sourced from Chinese regolith-hosted ion-adsorption deposits, yet the adsorption mechanisms remain unclear. Here, the authors find that heavy REE are adsorbed as easily leachable 8-coordinated outer-sphere hydrated complexes, dominantly onto kaolinite, in clays from both China and Madagascar.

    • Anouk M. Borst
    • , Martin P. Smith
    •  & Kalotina Geraki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Trace amounts of water dissolved in minerals play an important role in global tectonics through changing the density, viscosity and melting behaviour of the Earth’s mantle. Here, the authors identify the presence of molecular hydrogen in nominally anhydrous ecolgite minerals from the Kaapvaal and Siberian cratons, indicating that the storage capacity of H in the mantle may have been underestimated.

    • B. N. Moine
    • , N. Bolfan-Casanova
    •  & J. Y. Cottin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magma storage zones are debated to either be crystal-dominated mush zones or large liquid-dominated magma chambers. Here, the authors discover fossilized solidification fronts of magnetitite in the Bushveld pluton, which indicate nucleation and crystal growth occurred at the magma chamber floor, precluding the existence of a thick crystal mush zone in this region.

    • Willem Kruger
    •  & Rais Latypov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Feldspars are stable at pressures up to 3 GPa along the mantle geotherm, but they can persist metastably at higher pressures at colder conditions. Here, above 10 GPa the authors find  new high-pressure polymorphs of feldspars that could persist at depths corresponding to the Earth’s upper mantle, potentially influencing the dynamics and fate of cold subducting slabs.

    • Anna Pakhomova
    • , Dariia Simonova
    •  & Leonid Dubrovinsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Applying high-pressure and -temperature experiments, the authors here measure sound velocities in various liquid Fe-S alloys under conditions expected for the upper Martian core. The results together with future InSight mission data will help to understand whether the Martian core is molten Fe-S.

    • Keisuke Nishida
    • , Yuki Shibazaki
    •  & Kei Hirose

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cooling of the iron core in the early Earth may have been too slow to allow for the generation of a magnetic field. Based on quantum mechanical and geodynamical modelling approaches, the authors find that the electrical conductivity of silicate liquid at high pressure and temperature conditions could have been sufficient to generate a silicate dynamo and a magnetic field in the early Earth.

    • Lars Stixrude
    • , Roberto Scipioni
    •  & Michael P. Desjarlais

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