• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.403-411
• /
• 2010

Essentials of understanding the geochemical evolution and geophysical processes in Earth's system are macroscopic properties and atomistic (and electronic) structures of Earth materials. Recent advances in quantum calculations based on the density functional theory allow us to unveil the previously unknown details of local atomic structures in diverse silicates in Earth's interior. Here, we report the O K-edge ELNES (energy-loss near-edge structure; ELNES) spectra and PLDOS (partial local density of states) for oxygen atoms in ${\alpha}$-quartz and stishovite using the quantum calculations based on FP-LAPW (full potential linearized augmented plane wave). The calculated O K-edge ELNES spectrum of ${\alpha}$-quartz shows a strong peak at ~538 eV due to comer-sharing oxygen linking two $SiO_4$ tetrahedra and that for stishovite shows two distinct peaks at ~537 and ~543 eV corresponding to edge-sharing oxygen linking $SiO_6$ octahedra. The significant differences in spectral features of O K-edge ELNES spectra suggest that the O K-edge features can be useful indicator to distinguish various oxygen sites in diverse crystal and amorphous silicates in the Earth's interior.