H
2O activities in supercritical fluids in the system KCl-H
2O-(MgO) were measured at pressures of 1, 2, 4, 7, 10 and 15 kbar by numerous reversals of vapor compositions in equilibrium
with brucite and periclase. Measurements spanned the range 550–900 °C. A change of state of solute KCl occurs as pressures
increase above 2 kbar, by which H
2O activity becomes very low and, at pressures of 4 kbar and above, nearly coincident with the square of the mole fraction
(
x
H2O). The effect undoubtedly results primarily from ionic dissociation as H
2O density (ρ
H2O) approaches 1 gm/cm
3, and is more pronounced than in the NaCl-H
2O system at the same
P-T-X conditions. Six values of solute KCl activity were yielded by terminal points of the isobaric brucite-periclase
T-x
H2O curves where sylvite saturation occurs. The H
2O mole fraction of the isobaric invariant assemblage brucite-periclase-sylvite-fluid is near 0.52 at all pressures, and the
corresponding temperatures span only 100 °C between 1 and 15 kbar. This remarkable convergence of the isobaric equilibrium
curves reflects the great influence of pressure on lowering of both KCl and H
2O activities. The H
2O and KCl activities can be expressed by the formulas:
a
H2O = γ
H2O[
x
H2O+(1 + (1 + α)
x
KCl)], and
a
KCL = γ
KCl[(1 + α)
x
KCl/(
x
H2O +(1 + α)
x
KCl)]
(1 + α), where α is a degree of dissociation parameter which increases from zero at the lowest pressures to near one at high pressures
and the γ's are activity coefficients based on an empirical regular solution parameter W: ln γ
i = (1 − x
i)
2W. Least squares fitting of our H
2O and KCl activity data evaluates the parameters: α = exp(4.166 −2.709/ρ
H2O) − 212.1
P/T, and W = (−589.6 − 23.10
P) /
T, with ρ
H2O in gm/cm
3,
P in kbar and
T in K. The standard deviation from the measured activities is only ± 0.014. The equations define isobaric liquidus curves,
which are in perfect agreement with previous DTA liquidus measurements at 0.5–2 kbar, but which depart progressively from
their extrapolation to higher pressures because of the pressure-induced dissociation effect. The great similarity of the NaCl-H
2O and KCl-H
2O systems suggests that H
2O activities in the ternary NaCl-KCl-H
2O system can be described with reasonable accuracy by assuming proportionality between the binary systems. This assumption
was verified by a few reconnaissance measurements at 10 kbar of the brucite-periclase equilibrium with a Na/(Na + K) ratio
of 0.5 and of the saturation temperature for Na/(Na + K) of 0.35 and 0.50. At that pressure the brucite-periclase curves reach
a lowest
x
H2O of 0.45 and a temperature of 587 °C before salt saturation occurs, values considerably lower than in either binary. This
double-salt eutectic effect may have a significant application to natural polyionic hypersaline solutions in the deep crust
and upper mantle in that higher solute concentrations and very low H
2O activities may be realized in complex solutions before salt saturation occurs. Concentrated salt solutions seem, from this
standpoint, and also because of high mechanical mobility and alkali-exchanging potential, feasible as metasomatic fluids for
a variety of deep-crust and upper mantle processes.
Received: 9 August 1996 / Accepted: 15 November 1996
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