High nitrogen solubility in stishovite (SiO(2)) under lower mantle conditions

Nitrogen is a crucial volatile element in the early Earth’s evolution and the origin of life. Despite its importance, nitrogen’s behavior in the Earth's interior remains poorly understood. Compared to other volatile elements, nitrogen is depleted in the Earth’s atmosphere (the so-called “missing nitrogen”), calling for a hidden deep reservoir. To investigate nitrogen’s behavior in the deep Earth including how the reservoir formed, high-pressure and high-temperature experiments were conducted at 28 GPa and 1,400–1,700 °C. To reproduce the conditions in the lower mantle, the redox was controlled using a Fe–FeO buffer. We observed that depending on the temperature conditions, stishovite can incorporate up to 90–404 ppm nitrogen, experimentally demonstrating that stishovite has the highest nitrogen solubility among the deep mantle minerals. Stishovite is the main mineral component of subducted nitrogen-rich sedimentary rocks and eroded continental crust that are eventually transported down to the lower mantle. Our results suggest that nitrogen could have been continuously transported into the lower mantle via subduction, ever since plate tectonics began.