The role of acidity–basicity in evaporating refractory inclusions in chondrites

Abstract

When melts of Ca–Al inclusions in chondrites, which are dominated by the oxides SiO₂, MgO, CaO, and Al₂O₃, evaporate at high temperatures, the SiO₂ and MgO fugacities are inverted: SiO₂, which is more volatile than MgO, becomes less volatile when melts rich in refractory CaO and Al₂O₃ evaporate. This fugacity inversion can be realistically explained within the framework of D.S. Korzhinskii’s theory of acid–base interaction between components in silicate melts. According to this theory, an increase in CaO concentration in the melt increases its basicity, and this, in turn, increases the activity (and hence, also fugacity) of MgO and decreases those of SiO₂. In the real compositions of the Ca–Al inclusions in chondrites, the MgO/SiO₂ ratio systematically decreases with an increase in the CaO concentration under the effect of acid–base interaction.