H2O solubility in basalt at upper mantle conditions

This study presents a new experimental approach for determining H₂O solubility in basaltic melt at upper mantle conditions. Traditional solubility experiments are limited to pressures of ~600 MPa or less because it is difficult to reliably quench silicate melts containing greater than ~10 wt% dissolved H₂O. To overcome this limitation, our approach relies on the use of secondary ion mass spectrometry to measure the concentration of H dissolved in olivine and on using the measured H in olivine as a proxy for the concentration of H₂O in the co-existing basaltic melt. The solubility of H₂O in the melt is determined by performing a series of experiments at a single pressure and temperature with increasing amounts of liquid H₂O added to each charge. The point at which the concentration of H in the olivine first becomes independent of the amount of initial H₂O content of the charge (added + adsorbed H₂O) indicates its solubility in the melt. Experiments were conducted by packing basalt powder into a capsule fabricated from San Carlos olivine, which was then pressure-sealed inside a Ni outer capsule. Our experimental results indicate that at 1000 MPa and 1200 °C, the solubility of H₂O in basaltic melt is 20.6 ± 0.9 wt% (2 × standard deviation). This concentration is considerably higher than predicted by most solubility models but defines a linear relationship between H₂O fugacity and the square of molar H₂O solubility when combined with solubility data from lower pressure experiments. Further, our solubility determination agrees with melting point depression determined experimentally by Grove et al. (2006) for the H₂O-saturated peridotite solidus at 1000 MPa. Melting point depression calculations were used to estimate H₂O solubility in basalt along the experimentally determined H₂O-saturated peridotite solidus. The results suggest that a linear relationship between H₂O fugacity and the square of molar solubility exists up to ~1300 MPa, where there is an inflection point and solubility begins to increase less strongly with increasing H₂O fugacity.