Fig. 4
Pressure at CMB (PCMB) and at base of liquid silicate (PBMO) for Mercury grown by addition of silicate to its mantle. Four lines show the range of minimum feasible pressures based on metal-silicate equilibrium at Mercury ΔIW = − 5.4 (Namur et al. 2016). Vertical dashed lines show range of proto-Mercury sizes suggested by planetary metal and Fe/Mg (Fig. 3). Top axis shows Fe/Mg mass ratio for the added amounts of silicate and Fe/Mg ratios for classes of chondritic meteorites (carbonaceous, enstatite, OC ordinary, and L or H for low and high iron groups (McDonough and Sun 1995)). Dashed lines around PBMO curve show a range of pressures used in different magma ocean models, 2/7 ≤ PBMO/PCMB ≤ 2/3 (Tuff et al. 2011; Rubie et al. 2011). fmetal curve (right axis) shows mass fraction of core when silicate is added to Mercury’s mantle. Labels on fmetal curve indicate metal fraction of carbonaceous chondrites (McDonough and Sun 1995), enstatite chondrites (Javoy et al. 2010), Venus (Dumoulin et al. 2017), Earth (Stacey 1992), Mars (Rivoldini et al. 2011) and Vesta (Russell et al. 2012) for comparison