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Was there any experimental study that determined $D$ for apatite and silicate liquid?

The GERM Kd database only lists one study with carbonatite liquid, but that's not what I'm looking for.

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1 Answers1

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Yes, in the paper Trace element partitioning between apatite and silicate melts (Prowatke and Klemme, 2006), where they present experimental apatite/melt trace element partition coefficients for a large number of trace elements, including $\ce{Nb}$. The experiments were performed at pressures of 1 GPa and at a temperature of 1250 C.

What the experiments revealed were:

  • An average of $D$ = 0.0018 for $\ce{Nb}$ (this value is an average of Table 5: Trace element partition coefficients between apatite and different silicate melt of the linked document).

  • $D_{Nb} \approx D_{Ta}$

  • The partition coefficient was not significantly affected by changing melt compositions.