Seismo Lab Seminar

This talk explores the interrelated evolution of water and the oxidation state of the Earth's mantle through thermodynamic modeling. I'll begin by showing how the capacity of the Earth's mantle to hold water increases as it cools. This finding suggests that Earth's early, hotter mantle may have held less water, potentially leading to an Archean "water world" with minimal land exposure. I'll then quantify the iron disproportionation reaction in the cooling mantle and discuss the extent to which the precipitated metallic iron in the mantle reacts with subducted water over Earth's history. Geologic evidence for the mantle redox state will be used here to refine our understanding of the subducted water budget through geologic time, linking the evolution of water and the oxidation state of the Earth's mantle through a deep oxygen cycle.