DEPARTMENT OF EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCES

Mineral Physics Laboratory (Jacobsen)

The Mineral Physics Laboratory features a suite of high-pressure diamond-anvil cells capable of maintaining static high pressures in excess of 100 Gigapascals, i.e., pressures near the core-mantle boundary at ~2900 km depth. Resistively-heated diamond cells are available for heating up to ~1200 K at simultaneous high pressure and are utilized for studies of mineral reactivity at crustal P-T conditions. There is also a 1-atm/2300 K gas-mixing furnace for synthesis at conditions of controlled oxygen fugacity. For deep-Earth studies, laser-heating facilities at the nearby Advanced Photon Source of Argonne National Laboratory are employed to reach sample temperatures in excess of 4000 K. At Northwestern, a variety of ultrasonic, spectroscopic, and structural probes are available for in-situ analysis of materials under high pressure and temperature conditions.