Alternative to MagmaSat

[zihanwei]

I'm wondering if there is any alternative to MagmaSat that can be automated by programming. I've tried alphaMELTS 2 and the pymelts package given in the xMELTS project, but it seems neither of them allows me to suppress the solid phases and only produce fluid phase like in MagmaSat.

Thanks!

Zihan

[Paula]

Hi Zihan,

What is the build date of the alphaMELTS 2 program that you have (the date that shows when you first start the program)? The latest version, which is available on GitLab, has a menu option that allows you to suppress all solid phases in one go, and another that means you can allow just fluid. I haven't tested it on MagmaSat-like calculations but it would be a good thing to do. There's also alphaMELTS for MATLAB/Python, that should be able to do this, though again I haven't tried it for this application. If you are interested in either then sign up for GitLab and email or private message me your username.

There is also a MagmaSat+ project that builds on the ThermoEngine that you found. I wasn't at the recent ENKI workshop so I don't know what the latest progress is, but you could try emailing Kayla or Mark (Ghiorso).

Cheers,
Paula

[zihanwei]

Hi Paula,

The version I'm using is alphaMELTS 2.0 (beta Jul  9 2019 20:48:45). I just checked and I found that in this version if I suppress the solid phase in option 8 from the menu, the fluid phase is also suppressed.

By the way, could you clarify where I can find alphaMELTS for python?

Thank you so much!

Zihan

[Paula]

Hi Zihan,

Yes, the idea was that you would be able to turn off all 'solid' phases (inside the MELTS code, anything that isn't silicate or carbonatite liquid is a 'solid'), and then just turn on selected phases by additional calls to option 8. Originally fluid was handled in option 8, but in the latest version it has been moved into menu option 9 with liquid; that way it gets more liquid-like options for the amount of fluid retained during fractionation / degassing. So, it's actually a bug, which I'll fix soon, that option 8 turns off fluid.

In the meantime, simply run option 9 after 8 to turn fluid back on. Also note that it writes out what you type at the menu into logfile.txt so with a bit of editing you can make a batch file that you can use to automate the calculations (use the '-b batch_file_name' switch with run-alphamelts.command).

Cheers,
Paula

[zihanwei]

Hi Paula,

Thank you for clarifying! It works.