Adiabatic Melting of the Mantle

Abstract

Generations of geology students have struggled through the rite of passage of learning how to read phase diagrams and apply them to understanding igneous processes. Although it may have seemed at times to many students that this was some kind of senseless torture, there was a sound reason for their struggles. Although 1-, 2- and 3-component systems are incomplete models of actual magmatic systems, many of the processes that occur in natural systems can be understood by analogy with them, and most importantly, phase diagrams make it possible to visualize often complex processes in relatively simple terms. Thus, they provide an easy to understand yet powerful framework for interpreting and understanding complex natural phenomena.