高圧実験と地球科学

抄録

The Earth’s interior is a real high pressure and high temperature world. Because the Earth’s deep interior cannot be directly observed, experimental investigations at high pressures and high temperatures have been playing an important role. Geophysical observations have revealed that the interior of the Earth is divided into several layers by the discontinuities of seismic wave velocity and density. The development of the high pressure technique has been made it possible to understand the nature of such seismic wave discontinuities. This article outlines the structure of the Earth and explains how high pressure experiments have contributed to the study of the Earth’s interior.