Percentage minerals crystallized in output files?

[mazza]

Hi!

I've been playing with both alphaMelts and rhyolite-Melts and I'm having trouble locating the percentage of minerals crystallized in an output file. I'm running both alphaMELTS and rhyolite-MELTS in fractionate solids/crystal fractionation mode, and I'm interested in the percentage of my crystallized phases at various stages of the calculation. Is there an easy way to extract this information from my output files?

Thanks!
Sarah

[Paula]

Hi Sarah,

Both the rhyolite-MLETS graphical user interface (GUI) and alphaMELTS list the masses, volumes etc. of individual phases crystallised in the relevant tables for each mineral. In the GUI these are as separate files, phasename.tbl. In alphaMELTS all the individual mineral tables are all in Phase_main_tbl.txt.

alphaMELTS also generates a file, Phase_mass_tbl.txt, that tabulates just the masses - no compositions or thermodynamic data - for all phases present. So that would be the quickest way to get percentages by mass if you have alphaMELTS up and running.

The GUI doesn't output a tabulate masses together by default. However, if you use MELTS_Excel to combine the .tbl output from the GUI then it generates a worksheet with this info. If you are on Windows you can use the public version of MELTS_Excel. If you are on Mac I can send you a version with the "Combine tbl" macro (it doesn't do the full MELTS calculations because Excel for Mac lacks the required VisualBasic functionality).

To use MELTS_Excel in this way: open the workbook and enable macros. Go to Tools, press the "Combine tbl" button. If you are on Windows, choose the melts.out file that goes with the .tbl files. If you are on Mac, choose the folder that contains melts.out and the .tbl files. You will get a second workbook with plots and tables; the masses table is on the "Combine" sheet.

The MELTS_Excel Combine .tbl output also includes a combined volumes table, if you are looking for percentages by volume. Getting percentages by volume in alphaMELTS would require combining results from different tables. The column_pick.command script would be useful for that so let me know if you want to try that. Alternatively, I'll add a Phase_vol_tbl.txt file in version 1.6 of alphaMELTS, which will be released in the next couple of weeks.

Best,
Paula