Abstract
THE enrichment of nickel in minerals such as olivine which appear at any early stage during fractional crystallization of magmas is well established1,2. This behaviour of nickel is contrary to all commonly accepted “rules” governing the distribution of minor elements during magmatic crystallization3–6. The behaviour is also anomalous when considered in relation to the binary system Mg2SiO4–Ni2SiO4 in which, on account of the higher melting-point of magnesium orthosilicate, early crystals are impoverished and late liquids enriched in nickel olivine5. Ringwood attributed the observed nickel enrichment in natural olivines to the preferential replacement of ferrous iron in the olivine structure, but this explanation is thermodynamically improbable. It was suggested recently by Ahrens7 that the nickel–oxygen bond in olivine is stabilized by crystal-field effects, but no mechanism for the early uptake was given. An earlier interpretation8 was apparently overlooked.
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BURNS, R., FYFE, W. Behaviour of Nickel during Magmatic Crystallization. Nature 210, 1147–1148 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/2101147a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2101147a0
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