Thermal equation of state for zoisite: Implications for the transportation of water into the upper mantle and the high-velocity anomaly in the Farallon plate

Seismic tomography studies have revealed a high-velocity anomaly at depths between 100 km and 300 km in the Farallon plate. However, the reasons for the high-velocity anomaly continue to be debated. An analy-sis of the mineral proportions of eclogites exhumed from the Farallon plate shows that the average amount of zoisite in eclogite is -16.0 vol%. Therefore, the presence of zoisite eclogite needs to be considered to explain the high-velocity anomaly of the Farallon plate. However, the thermal equation of state and stability of zoisite have not been fully investi-gated under high pressure-temperature (P -T) conditions. We investigated the high-pressure and high-temperature behavior of natural zoisite utilizing synchrotron single crystal -X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results indicate that zoisite is metastable up to 24.8 GPa and 700 K. We obtained the ambient unit-cell vol-ume V0 = 901.26(3) angstrom 3 by synchrotron single crystal-XRD measurement. We also fitted the pressure-volume-temperature data to a high-temperature Birch-Murnaghan equa-tion of state and obtained the zero-pressure bulk modulus K0 = 134.7(8) GPa, the tem-perature derivative of the bulk modulus ( partial differential K/ partial differential T)P = -0.011(4) GPa/K, and the ther-mal expansion coefficients alpha 0V = 1.9(7) x 10-5 K-1 and alpha 1V = 3(2) x 10-8 K-2 when the pres-sure derivative of bulk modulus (K ' 0) is fixed at 4. By incorporating the results from previous studies, we calculated the density and bulk sound velocity profiles of zoisite eclogite along the Farallon plate geotherm. Finally, we infer that zoisite could carry water to depths of -300 km within cold subducting slabs and that the bulk sound velocity of typical zoisite eclogite with -61.0 vol% omphacite, -23.0 vol% garnet, and -16.0 vol% zoisite could cause the high-velocity anomalies at depths of 100-300 km in the Farallon plate.

Automated summary

Seismic tomography revealed a high-velocity anomaly at depths of 100 km to 300 km in the Farallon plate, and the reasons for this anomaly are still debated. Analysis of exhumed eclogites from the Farallon plate showed that the average amount of zoisite in eclogites is -16.0 vol%. To understand the high-velocity anomaly, the behavior of zoisite under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions was investigated using synchrotron single crystal-XRD.