In situ study at high pressure and temperature of the environment of water in hydrous Na and Ca aluminosilicate melts and coexisting aqueous fluids

Abstract

The bonding and speciation of water dissolved in Na silicate and Na and Ca aluminosilicate melts were inferred from in situ Raman spectroscopy of the samples, in hydrothermal diamond anvil cells, while at crustal temperature and pressure conditions. Raman data were also acquired on Na silicate and Na and Ca aluminosilicate glasses, quenched from hydrous melts equilibrated at high temperature and pressure in a piston cylinder apparatus. In the hydrous melts, temperature strongly influences O-H stretching ν(O-H) signals, reflecting its control on the bonding of protons between different molecular complexes. Pressure and melt composition effects are much smaller and difficult to discriminate with the present data. However, the chemical composition of the melt + fluid system influences the differences between the ν(O-H) signals from the melts and the fluids and, hence, between their hydrogen partition functions. Quenching modifies the O-H stretching signals: strong hydrogen bonds form in the glasses below the glass transition temperature Tg, and this phenomenon depends on glass composition. Therefore, glasses do not necessarily record the O-H stretching signal shape in melts near Tg. The melt hydrogen partition function thus cannot be assessed with certainty using O-H stretching vibration data from glasses. From the present results, the ratio of the hydrogen partition functions of hydrous silicate melts and aqueous fluids mostly depends on temperature and the bulk melt + fluid system chemical composition. This implies that the fractionation of hydrogen isotopes between magmas and aqueous fluids in water-saturated magmatic systems with differences in temperature and bulk chemical composition will be different.