It is generally accepted that planetary surfaces were covered with molten silicate, a “magma ocean,” during the formation of terrestrial planets. In a deep magma ocean, iron would separate from silicate, sink, and eventually form a metallic core. In this stage, elemental partitioning between a metallic core and a magma ocean would have occurred and siderophile elements would be removed from the magma ocean. Such a chemically differentiated magma ocean formed the present-day Earth’s mantle. Previous studies have experimentally investigated carbon partitioning between iron liquid and silicate melt under high-pressure conditions and found that a terrestrial magma ocean should be more depleted in carbon than the present day. Thus, how and when the carbon abundance in the Earth’s mantle has been established is still poorly understood.
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Source: Phys.org