Bulk modulus of Fe-rich olivines corrected for non-hydrostaticity

In situ X-ray diffraction was used to measure the isothermal bulk modulus at room conditions (K_T0)of synthetic olivines with different iron contents. The chemical formulae of the olivine samples were (Fe_x,Mg_1−x)₂SiO₄ with x = 0.45; 0.64; 0.82; 1, with 1% standard deviation (referenced as Fa45, Fa64, Fa82 and Fa100, respectively). All experiments were performed in the multi-anvil apparatus installed at NSLS beamline X17B2, to pressures up to about 7 GPa. Unit-cell volumes under hydrostatic conditions and differential stresses present in the samples were calculated using the method developed by Singh et al. (1998), and pressures measured using NaCl as a standard were then corrected for these stresses. Using a second-order Birch–Murnaghan equation of state, we obtained the isothermal bulk modulus of each composition: K_T0 ^Fa45=131.4±2.6 GPa, K_T0 ^Fa64=132.1±3.1 GPa, K_T0 ^Fa82=136.3±1.7 GPa and K_T0 ^Fa100=134.8±1.4 GPa. These values combined with data available in the literature show that the K_T0 of Fe-rich olivines increases very slowly with the Fe content, but possibly not in a simple linear trend.