This award provides support for the assembly of what is known as a piston-cylinder apparatus used for the study of materials at high pressures and temperatures (up to 50 kilobars and 2000 degrees Kelvin). Funds are also provided for the shipping of a 2000-ton press from Ohio to Cambridge, Massachusetts where it will be incorporated by the Principal Investigator into an experimental high-pressure system. The press is being donated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by the General Electric Superabrasive Division in Worthington, Ohio. The upgraded high-pressure systems will be used in experiments whose purpose is to define solid-melt chemical reactions that are relevant to the formation of magmas in the earth's lower crust and upper mantle, and to determine the temperature and pressure conditions of these reactions.
