| | Edward M Stolper -- Experimental and theoretical studies of mantle melting (Site not responding. Last check: ) |
 | | This process is the dominant one by which the mantle melts: parcels of mantle rise adiabatically (or roughly so), and because the solidus is (at least at low pressures) steeper than an adiabat in pressure-temperature space, initially solid materials melt as they decompress and cool. |
 | | The key factor in understanding how a mixture of pyroxene-rich lthologies and peridotite will melt (assuming they exchange thermally but not chemically during melting) is that due to their lower melting temperatures, pyroxene-rich lithologies will begin to melt separately and at greater depth than peridotites during decompression melting (see figure). |
 | | Some of these are illustrated in the second movie illustrating melting of a mixture of olivine-rich rocks (i.e., peridotite) and pyroxene-rich rocks (i.e., pyroxenite) in a model binary system (this can be compared directly with the movie shown previously for a single lithology source with the same bulk composition). |
| www.gps.caltech.edu /faculty/stolper/mantle_melting.html (939 words) |