Abstract
Recent developments in experimental mineralogy are reviewed. Significant advancement has been made as follows: (1) recent development of the high pressure technology, such as the diamond anvil cell and the multi anvil apparatus, made it possible to characterize the stability fields, crystallographic and physical properties of the mantle minerals synthesized at high pressure by using these high pressure apparatuses; (2) various techiniques have been developed to make “in situ” observation of the physical properties and kinetics of the phase transitions at high pressures and temperatures; the techniques for the “in situ” observation are the high pressure and temperature X-ray diffraction using synchrotron radiation X-ray source, the high temperature transmission electron microscopy, in situ optical microscopic observation in the aqueous solutions and the high temperature silicate magmas, spectroscopies at high pressure by using the diamond anvil cell.
