An experimental investigation of factors controlling the oxygen content of sulphide melts in the Earth’s upper mantle

Abstract

To determine the factors that control the oxygen content of sulphide melts in the upper mantle, mono-sulphides were equilibrated with mantle peridotite assemblages, with varying FeO and NiO contents, between 3 and 13 GPa and 1300 to 1819 °C. Carbonates were added as a flux and the use of graphite capsules allowed oxygen fugacities (fo2) to be estimated for most of the experiments. Sulphide melt O concentrations were in the range 0.2–3.7 wt. %, coexisting with silicate assemblages with olivine Fe/(Fe + Mg) ratios between 0.04 and 0.25. Except in Ni-bearing experiments, variations in the sulphur/metal cation ratio did not affect the sulphide melt O contents, which also appeared to be independent of fo2. The silicate FeO contents, temperature and pressure were found to be the main controls on O contents. Nickel lowers the O content, although all Ni-bearing experiments produced sulphides with lower sulphur/metal ratios, making it difficult to categorically separate the effect of Ni alone. A preliminary geothermometer expression was developed based on the O content of the sulphide melts and the iron oxide concentrations of coexisting olivine and orthopyroxene. With this expression, the experimental temperatures are reproduced to within 74 K for Ni-free experiments and within 135 K for Ni-bearing samples. Using measurements of the O contents of sulphide inclusions of peridotite affinity in diamonds from the Lac de Gras kimberlite field, a plausible average entrapment temperature of 1318 ± 48 °C is calculated. Mantle peridotite assemblages would be expected to contain sulphide melts with approximately 0.4–0.6 wt. % O along a typical mantle adiabat down to 200 km depth.