Elastic wave travel times have been determined as functions of hydrostatic pressure to 3 GPa for five modes of propagation in synthetic single-crystal w¿stite Fe0.943O by ultrasonic phase comparison. The measured travel times, corrected for transducer-bond phase shifts, constrain very accurately the zero-pressure elastic moduli (GPa) and, for the first time, their first pressure derivatives (dimensionless) as follows: C11:218.4, dC11/dP:9.65, C12:123.0, dC12/dP:2.77, C44:45.5, dC44/dP:-1.03. The zero-pressure moduli are in good agreement with the results of previous determinations by ultrasonic wave propagation but not with all of the moduli determined by resonance technqiues. The variation of bulk modulus with pressure calculated from the Cij(P) is extrapolated to much higher pressures via third-order Eulerian isotherms of isentropes based on KOS=154.9 GPa and (dKS/dP)OT=4.90. The resulting isothermal and shock compression curves satisfactorily reproduce the experimental data to ~70 GPa, thereby providing a unified description of essentially all data bearing on the compressibility of w¿stite. At higher pressures, published shock compression studies provide clear evidence for the existence of a different phase of much greater density and incompressibility.

Metallic values of electrical conductivity have been reported for pressures >70 GPa under conditions of shock and high-temperature static loading. Polyhedral face-sharing in either the B8(NiAs) or B2(CsCl) (or derivative) structures would result in shorter Fe-Fe distances, allowing greater 3d orbital overlap conducive to metallic conductivity. However, none of these possibilities satisfactorily accounts for the large inferred increase (14-20%) in zero-pressure density unless the Fe-O distance is also reduced by 3-5% by electron delocalization or spin-pairing. The marked violation of the Cauchy condition associated with the very low value of C44 and its unusual temperature and pressure derivatives and attributable mainly to exchange coupling between nearest and next-nearest neighbor spins. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1990