Strong inheritance of texture between perovskite and
post-perovskite in the D" layer.

David P. Dobson, Nobuyoshi Miyajima, Fabrizio Nestola, Matteo Alvaro, Nicola Casati, Christian Liebske, Ian G. Wood & Andrew M. Walker
Nature Geoscience 6, 575–578 (2013) doi:10.1038/ngeo1844
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n7/abs/ngeo1844.html
The cover of the journal: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n7/covers/index.html

He came into an inheritance from his father. Flow in the deep mantle is thought to create deformation textures in the high-pressure mineral post-perovskite (Child), which is transformed from magnesium-silicate perovskite (Father) in the lower mantle. Laboratory simulations of the transformation between lower-pressure perovskite and post-perovskite in a fluoride analogue system show that post-perovskite can also inherit textures from the perovskite phase, and vice versa (See Figure below). This texture inheritance during the transition, combined with a single slip system in post-perovskite, can explain the seismic anisotropy of the lowermost mantle. We have for the first time confirmed the topotaxy relations (Inheritance) between the two structures experimentally, by using a 200 kV-transmission electron microscope at Bayerisches Geoinstitut.

 

High-resolution TEM image: Perovskite (Pv) and post-perovskite (PPv) domains are labelled. Inset: Selected area electron diffraction pattern from the area. The electron diffraction pattern indicates the topotaxy relations between the two structures.

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