Friday, September 27, 2019

Geosonnet 59



Molybdenum is sulfur’s stable mate
Unfractionated isotopes preserved
Like genteel Dr Jekyll, sometimes fate
Disrupts the inner peace that is deserved.
When oxygen attacks stable sulfide
Molybdenate and sulfate are dissolved
Adsorption onto rust, like Mr Hyde
Wreaks horrid fractionation, unresolved.
The speciation in a rock controls
If seawater Mo isotopes remain.
A moly oxide, even in black coals
May fractionate the isotopes again.
  The near adsorption edge of XANES can tell
   If moly isotopes have gone to Hell.


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Sunday, September 01, 2019

Geosonnet 58

Three narratives, like Roshomon they vie,

To frame suboceanic mantle growth.
Sea water infiltration cannot tie
The isotopes and concentrations both.
A diff’rent melt, cryptic in its disguise
Will spin the tale to take the starring role.
From clinopyroxene we can surmise
The melting source, not multiple, is sole.
Assimilation, favored by the Borg
Sees itself eating altered seafloor crust
This theory dies, is buried in the morgue
These melts are far too primitive, robust.
     Unlike the movie data can constain
     Remelted sulfides crystallized again.





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