Ebook: Thermodynamic Data: Systematics and Estimation

With the rapid development of fast processors, the power of a mini-super­ computer now exists in a lap-top box. Quite sophisticated techniques are be­ coming accessible to geoscientists, thus making disciplinary boundaries fade. Chemists and physicists are no longer shying away from computational mineral­ ogical and material science problems "too complicated to handle." Geoscientists are willing to delve into quantitative physico-chemical methods and open those "black boxes" they had shunned for several decades but with which had learned to live. I am proud to present yet another volume in this series which is designed to break the disciplinary boundaries and bring the geoscientists closer to their chemist and physicist colleagues in achieving a common goal. This volume is the result of an international collaboration among many physical geochemists (chemists, physicists, and geologists) aiming to understand the nature of material. The book has one common theme: namely, how to determine quantitatively through theory the physico-chemical parameters of the state of a solid or fluid.

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Thermodynamic modelling of experimental or natural phase equilibria has become an integral part of petrology. The wide range of possible mineral compositions in natural rocks and the slow reaction kinetics that hinder direct experimentation make it necessary to have robust theoretical mixing models for interpolation and extrapolation. The contributing authors of Thermodynamic Data: Systematics and Estimation discuss, in detail, these various modelling methods and show how computer simulation of geochemical reactions enable experimentalists to explore processes that are difficult or impossible to reproduce in the laboratory.