New insight into the temperature of deep Earth
Thursday, May 22, 2014 - 13:31
in Earth & Climate
Scientists from the Magma and Volcanoes Laboratory (CNRS) and the European Synchrotron, the ESRF, have recreated the extreme conditions 600 to 2900 km below the Earth's surface to investigate the melting of basalt in the oceanic tectonic plates. They exposed microscopic pieces of rock to these extreme pressures and temperatures while simultaneously studying their structure with the ESRF's extremely powerful X-ray beam.