The Earth’s mantle is a highly dynamic system, that exerts a key control on global scale tectonics and shapes the chemical composition of our planet.
Studies on ultramafic xenoliths, diamonds, exposed mantle sections, ophiolites, and primary melts have proven that the mantle is modally, texturally, and compositionally heterogeneous. Minerals and mineral-hosted inclusions in mantle-derived rocks from various geodynamic settings preserve a vast, but still incomplete record of multistage processes (e.g., melt extraction, deformation, melt/fluid-rock reactions, asthenosphere-lithosphere interactions and/or crustal recycling, possibly subduction-related). Unfortunately, the overlap of these processes makes it challenging to identify the single evolutionary stages, and the use of monodisciplinary approaches often limits our perspective in the interpretation.
To link micro-scale observations to large-scale geodynamic processes, petrological/geochemical models based on mineral and melt/fluid inclusions must be compared to data extracted from geophysics, thermodynamics, HP-HT experiments, and surface gaseous emissions.
With the aim to explore and discuss the new findings of the nature and spatial-temporal evolution of the Earth’s mantle, this session welcomes contributions from a broad range of disciplines, including - but not limited to - petrology, geochemistry of minerals, melt and fluid inclusions, thermo-oxy-barometry, experimental petrology, and thermodynamic modelling.