The post-stishovite phase transition in hydrous alumina-bearing SiO2 in the lower mantle of the earth

Nanosecond structural evolution in shocked coesite

The phase transitions in minerals under shock are crucial for understanding meteorite impact history. Recent time-resolved x-ray diffraction (XRD) studies on silica shocked to 65 GPa proposed the formation of different high-pressure phases between fused silica and quartz. Furthermore, the dynamics of silica behavior under higher pressure need to be investigated, particularly during nonequilibrium superheating before melting. This study examines the time-dependent response of coesite, using laser-driven shock coupled with fast XRD and molecular dynamics simulations with our recently developed machine learning interatomic potential. Our results reveal a transient dense supercooled liquid crystallizes into a semi-disordered d-NiAs-type silica, followed by transforming into either seifertite or stishovite, depending on the pressure. Instead of thermodynamically stable quartz, a back-transformation to coesite phase is identified after release. The complicated phase evolution pathways in shocked coesite provide deeper insights into the high-pressure silica phases observed in the meteorite bombardments on the early Moon, Mars, and Earth.

Silica-water superstructure and one-dimensional superionic conduit in Earth's mantle

Water in Earth's deep interior is predicted to be hydroxyl (OH-) stored in nominally anhydrous minerals, profoundly modulating both structure and dynamics of Earth's mantle. Here, we use a high-dimensional neuro-network potential and machine learning algorithm to investigate the weight percent water incorporation in stishovite, a main constituent of the subducted oceanic crust. We found that stishovite and water prefer forming medium- to long-range ordered superstructures, featuring one-dimensional (1D) water channels. Synthesizing single crystals of hydrous stishovite, we verified the ordering of OH- groups in the water channels through optical and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and found an average H-H distance of 2.05(3) Å, confirming simulation results. Upon heating, H atoms were predicted to behave fluid-like inside the channels, leading to an exotic 1D superionic state. Water-bearing stishovite could feature high ionic mobility and strong electrical anisotropy, manifesting as electrical heterogeneity in Earth's mantle.

Superhydrous aluminous silica phases as major water hosts in high-temperature lower mantle

Water transported by subducted oceanic plates changes mineral and rock properties at high pressures and temperatures, affecting the dynamics and evolution of the Earth’s interior. Although geochemical observations imply that water should be stored in the lower mantle, the limited amounts of water incorporation in pyrolitic lower-mantle minerals suggest that water in the lower mantle may be stored in the basaltic fragments of subducted slabs. Here, we performed multianvil experiments to investigate the stability and water solubility of aluminous stishovite and CaCl 2 -structured silica, referred to as poststishovite, in the SiO 2 -Al 2 O 3 -H 2 O systems at 24 to 28 GPa and 1,000 to 2,000 °C, representing the pressure–temperature conditions of cold subducting slabs to hot upwelling plumes in the top lower mantle. The results indicate that both alumina and water contents in these silica minerals increase with increasing temperature under hydrous conditions due to the strong Al 3+ -H + charge coupling substitution, resulting in the storage of water up to 1.1 wt %. The increase of water solubility in these hydrous aluminous silica phases at high temperatures is opposite of that of other nominally anhydrous minerals and of the stability of the hydrous minerals. This feature prevents the releasing of water from the subducting slabs and enhances the transport water into the deep lower mantle, allowing significant amounts of water storage in the high-temperature lower mantle and circulating water between the upper mantle and the lower mantle through subduction and plume upwelling. The shallower depths of midmantle seismic scatterers than expected from the pure SiO 2 stishovite–poststishovite transition pressure support this scenario.

Velocity and density characteristics of subducted oceanic crust and the origin of lower-mantle heterogeneities

Seismic heterogeneities detected in the lower mantle were proposed to be related to subducted oceanic crust. However, the velocity and density of subducted oceanic crust at lower-mantle conditions remain unknown. Here, we report ab initio results for the elastic properties of calcium ferrite-type phases and determine the velocities and density of oceanic crust along different mantle geotherms. We find that the subducted oceanic crust shows a large negative shear velocity anomaly at the phase boundary between stishovite and CaCl₂-type silica, which is highly consistent with the feature of mid-mantle scatterers. After this phase transition in silica, subducted oceanic crust will be visible as high-velocity heterogeneities as imaged by seismic tomography. This study suggests that the presence of subducted oceanic crust could provide good explanations for some lower-mantle seismic heterogeneities with different length scales except large low shear velocity provinces (LLSVPs).

Evidence for the stability of ultrahydrous stishovite in Earth's lower mantle

The distribution and transportation of water in Earth's interior depends on the stability of water-bearing phases. The transition zone in Earth's mantle is generally accepted as an important potential water reservoir because its main constituents, wadsleyite and ringwoodite, can incorporate weight percent levels of H2O in their structures at mantle temperatures. The extent to which water can be transported beyond the transition zone deeper into the mantle depends on the water carrying capacity of minerals stable in subducted lithosphere. Stishovite is one of the major mineral components in subducting oceanic crust, yet the capacity of stishovite to incorporate water beyond at lower mantle conditions remains speculative. In this study, we combine in situ laser heating with synchrotron X-ray diffraction to show that the unit cell volume of stishovite synthesized under hydrous conditions is ∼2.3 to 5.0% greater than that of anhydrous stishovite at pressures of ∼27 to 58 GPa and temperatures of 1,240 to 1,835 K. Our results indicate that stishovite, even at temperatures along a mantle geotherm, can potentially incorporate weight percent levels of H2O in its crystal structure and has the potential to be a key phase for transporting and storing water in the lower mantle.

Oxygen Vacancies in Oxide Nanoclusters: When Silica Is More Reducible Than Titania

Oxygen vacancies are related to specific optical, conductivity and magnetic properties in macroscopic SiO2 and TiO2 compounds. As such, the ease with which oxygen vacancies form often determines the application potential of these materials in many technological fields. However, little is known about the role of oxygen vacancies in nanosized materials. In this work we compute the energies to create oxygen vacancies in highly stable nanoclusters of (TiO2)N, (SiO2)N, and mixed (TixSi1-xO2)N for sizes between N = 2 and N = 24 units. Contrary to the results for bulk and surfaces, we predict that removing an oxygen atom from global minima silica clusters is energetically more favorable than from the respective titania species. This unexpected chemical behavior is clearly linked to the inherent presence of terminal unsaturated oxygens at these nanoscale systems. In order to fully characterize our findings, we provide an extensive set of descriptors (oxygen vacancy formation energy, electron localization, density of states, relaxation energy, and geometry) that can be used to compare our results with those for other compositions and sizes. Our results will help in the search of novel nanomaterials for technological and scientific applications such as heterogeneous catalysis, electronics, and cluster chemistry.

Thermal exfoliation of stoichiometric single-layer silica from the stishovite phase: insight from first-principles calculations

Mechanical cleavage, chemical intercalation and chemical vapor deposition are the main methods that are currently used to synthesize nanosheets or monolayers. Here, we propose a new strategy, thermal exfoliation for the fabrication of silica monolayers. Using a variety of state-of-the-art theoretical calculations we show that a stoichiometric single-layer silica with a tetragonal lattice, T-silica, can be thermally exfoliated from the stishovite phase in a clean environment at room temperature. The resulting single-layer silica is dynamically, thermally, and mechanically stable with exceptional properties, including a large band gap of 7.2 eV, an unusual negative Poisson's ratio, a giant Stark effect, and a high breakdown voltage. Moreover, other analogous structures like single-layer GeO2 can also be obtained by thermal exfoliation of its bulk phase. Our findings are expected to motivate experimental efforts on developing new techniques for the synthesis of monolayer materials.

A high-pressure synthesis of hydrothermally stable periodic mesoporous crystalline aluminosilica materials

We report a synthetic route to mesoporous crystalline aluminosilica materials using high pressure and temperature.

Discovery of coesite and stishovite in eucrite

Howardite-eucrite-diogenite meteorites (HEDs) probably originated from the asteroid 4 Vesta. We investigated one eucrite, Béréba, to clarify a dynamic event that occurred on 4 Vesta using a shock-induced high-pressure polymorph. We discovered high-pressure polymorphs of silica, coesite, and stishovite originating from quartz and/or cristobalite in and around the shock-melt veins of Béréba. Lamellar stishovite formed in silica grains through a solid-state phase transition. A network-like rupture was formed and melting took place along the rupture in the silica grains. Nanosized granular coesite grains crystallized from the silica melt. Based on shock-induced high-pressure polymorphs, the estimated shock-pressure condition ranged from ∼8 to ∼13 GPa. Considering radiometric ages and shock features, the dynamic event that led to the formation of coesite and stishovite occurred ca. 4.1 Ga ago, which corresponds to the late heavy bombardment period (ca. 3.8-4.1 Ga), deduced from the lunar cataclysm. There are two giant impact basins around the south pole of 4 Vesta. Although the origin of HEDs is thought to be related to dynamic events that formed the basins ca. 1.0 Ga ago, our findings are at variance with that idea.

CoF2: a model system for magnetoelastic coupling and elastic softening mechanisms associated with paramagnetic ↔ antiferromagnetic phase transitions

Resonant ultrasound spectroscopy has been used to monitor variations in the elastic and anelastic behaviour of polycrystalline CoF2 through the temperature interval 10-290 K and in the frequency range ∼0.4-2 MHz. Marked softening, particularly of the shear modulus, and a peak in attenuation occur as the Néel point (TN=39 K) is approached from both high and low temperatures. Although the effective thermodynamic behaviour can be represented semiquantitatively with a Bragg-Williams model for a system with spin 1/2, the magnetoelastic coupling follows a pattern which is closely analogous to that of a Landau tricritical transition which is co-elastic in character. Analysis of lattice parameter data from the literature confirms that linear spontaneous strains scale with the square of the magnetic order parameter and combine to give effective shear and volume strains on the order of 1‰. Softening of the shear modulus at T>TN is attributed to coupling of acoustic modes with dynamical local ordering of spins and can be represented by a Vogel-Fulcher expression. At T<TN the coupling of strains with the antiferromagnetic order parameter leads to softening of the shear modulus by up to ∼2%, but this is accompanied by a small and frequency-dependent acoustic loss. The loss mechanism is attributed to spin-lattice relaxations under the influence of externally applied dynamic shear stress. CoF2 provides a reference or end-member behaviour against which the likely antiferromagnetic component of magnetoelastic behaviour in more complex multiferroic materials, with additional displacive instabilities, Jahn-Teller effects and ferroelastic microstructures, can be compared.

Coesite and stishovite in a shocked lunar meteorite, Asuka-881757, and impact events in lunar surface

Microcrystals of coesite and stishovite were discovered as inclusions in amorphous silica grains in shocked melt pockets of a lunar meteorite Asuka-881757 by micro-Raman spectrometry, scanning electron microscopy, electron back-scatter diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy. These high-pressure polymorphs of SiO(2) in amorphous silica indicate that the meteorite experienced an equilibrium shock-pressure of at least 8-30 GPa. Secondary quartz grains are also observed in separate amorphous silica grains in the meteorite. The estimated age reported by the (39)Ar/(40)Ar chronology indicates that the source basalt of this meteorite was impacted at 3,800 Ma ago, time of lunar cataclysm; i.e., the heavy bombardment in the lunar surface. Observation of coesite and stishovite formed in the lunar breccias suggests that high-pressure impact metamorphism and formation of high-pressure minerals are common phenomena in brecciated lunar surface altered by the heavy meteoritic bombardment.