This project involves laboratory experiments designed to quantify the mantle melting processes that lead to the generation of mid- ocean ridge basalts. The overall goals of the work are to understand the range of depths, the extents of melting and the melting mechanisms that operate in the earth's upper mantle to produce magmas under the mid-ocean ridges. Two projects will be conducted: (1) melting experiments on basalt-analog compositions carried out over the pressure range of 10 to 25 kbar, and (2) diffusion experiments at 15 to 20 kbar.
