Bowen's reaction series and fractional crystallisation
Series de reacción de Bowen y cristalización fraccionada
- Date
- 1915-1928 · confidence high
- Place
- Washington, D.C., United States
- Credited to
- Norman L. Bowen
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
With high-temperature experiments at the Carnegie Geophysical Laboratory, Bowen showed that a basaltic magma, as it cools, crystallises minerals in a fixed order (olivine, pyroxene, amphibole, biotite, quartz), and that crystal separation explains the diversity of igneous rocks. His 1928 book made it the central theory of petrology.
His book The Evolution of the Igneous Rocks dates from 1928; the ideas developed from 1915. It turned out that not every magma follows the series, and that partial melting of the mantle is just as important.
What it led to
- modern igneous petrology and phase diagrams of rocks
- interpretation of magmatic differentiation