Mollo, S., Gaeta, M., Freda, C., Di Rocco, T., Misiti, V., & Scarlato, P. (2010). Carbonate assimilation in magmas: a reappraisal based on experimental petrology. Lithos, 114(3), 503-514.
This article is about further constraints on magma-carbonate interactions in order to better determine processes of carbonate assimilation such as changes in textures, phase chemistry, redox state, and equilibrium conditions. They used synthetic glass (SiO2= 48.3, TiO2= 0.7, Al2O3= 11.4, FeO= 7.5, MgO= 13.7, CaO= 14, Na2O= 1.2, K2O= 3.3 [all wt.%]) as the base material for this experiment. They find that the texture changes significantly between CaCO3-free and CaCO3-bearing experiments, including crystal content. The experiment also shows that the phase chemistry of olivine changes considerably. Overall, they determine that, “carbonate incorporation into silicate melt leads toward silica-undersaturated melts by consuming SiO2 to form diopside.” Carbonate assimilation was found to be more complex than previously discovered and encompasses three different phases.
Guignard, J., Bystricky, M., & Béjina, F. (2011). Dense fine-grained aggregates prepared by spark plasma sintering (SPS), an original technique in experimental petrology. European Journal of Mineralogy, 23(3), 323-331.
Spark plasma sintering (SPS) is a relatively new technique in experimental petrology to help determine homogeneous phase distribution and specific phase volume ratios of polyphase aggregates. In other words, “SPS is a powerful method for obtaining dense ceramics with controlled sub-micrometer grain sizes.” To test the abilities of SPS, they gather several powder mixtures that were ground together. After running the powder through the SPS machine, they became pellets about 3-4mm in thickness with densities higher than 99% of their theoretical values. The result of their experiment show that “it is possible to sinter dense (.99 %) polycrystalline aggregates of mantle and meteorite analogs using the [SPS] technique.”
