Measured elastic moduli of single-crystal MgO up to 1800 K

Using the rectangular parallelepiped resonance method we measured the temperature dependence of the adiabatic elastic moduli of single-crystal MgO over the temperature range 300–1800 K. The high temperature limit of our measurements extends by 500 K the upper limit over which elasticity data on MgO are now available. Although our measured temperature dependence of C _ij ^s are generally in good agreement with previous measurements over a more narrow range in temperature, we found that C ₄₄ ^s decreases more rapidly with temperature, for T > 1000 K, than previous studies suggest. We also found that each of the slopes (?C ₁₁ ^s /?T)_p, (?K_s/?T)_p, and (C ₄₄ ^s /?T)_p become less negative with increasing temperature for T > 1400 K. From our measurements on elasticity we are able to confirm that the Grüneisen parameter at zero pressure is nearly constant with temperature up to 1800 K, with only a slight decrease above 1000 K. Utilizing our new data we present calculations showing the temperature dependence of thermodynamic parameters important in studies of earth's interior.