WITH THE RECENT ESTIMATES OF MERCURY'S SURFACE COMPOSITION FROM THE X-RAY SPECTROMETER AND GAMMA-RAY SPECTROMETER ONBOARD THE MERCURY SURFACE SPACE ENVIRONMENT GEOCHEMISTRY AND RANGING (MESSENGER) SPACECRAFT WE NOW HAVE OUR FIRST OPPORTUNITY TO DIRECTLY INVESTIGATE THE COMPOSITIONS OF LAVAS FROM THE PLANET MERCURY AND INDIRECTLY INVESTIGATE THE CHEMICAL MAKE-UP OF MERCURY'SINTERIOR. ONE PARTICULAR REGION OF INTEREST ON MERCURY FOR IGNEOUS PETROLOGISTS IS THE NORTHERN VOLCANIC PLAINS (NVP) WHICH ARE SMOOTH PLAINS OF SUSPECTED VOLCANIC ORIGIN THAT COVER MORE THAN 6% OF THE SURFACE AREA OF MERCURY. A SECOND REGION IS THE LARGEST PYROCLASTIC DEPOSIT (PD) ON THE PLANET LOCATED TO THE NE OF RACHMANINOFF BASIN THIS PROPOSAL PRESENTS 1 PRIMARY COMPREHENSIVESCIENCE TASK FOR COMPLETION DURING MY PH.D. PROGRAM: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY INTO THE PHASE EQUILIBRIA ASSOCIATED WITH THE HIGH- (NPHMG) AND LOW-MG (NP-LMG) REGIONS OF THE NP AS WELL AS THE PD LOCATED TO THE NE OF RACHMANINOFF BASIN. THIS DATA WILL BE USED TO DETERMINE THE SURFACE MINERALOGY IN THESE TWO REGIONS ON MERCURY AND THE MINERALOGY OF THE MERCURIAN INTERIOR. THE RESULTS OF THETHREE PHASE DIAGRAMS WILL BE ASSESSED TO SEE IF THESE DIFFERENT COMPOSITIONS CAN BE RELATED TO EACH OTHER THROUGH MAGMATIC PROCESSES SUCH AS FRACTIONAL CRYSTALLIZATION TO PROVIDE CONSTRAINS ON THE THERMAL AND MAGMATIC EVOLUTION OF THE PLANET. ALL EXPERIMENTS WILL BE CONDUCTED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO (UNM) USING A VERTICAL-TUBE DELTECH QUENCHING FURNACE (1 BAR) NON-END LOADED PISTONCYLINDER (0.5 -2 GPA) AND A WALKER STYLE MULTI-ANVIL DEVICE (2.5 -7 GPA). PHASE EQUILIBRIA EXPERIMENTS WILL BE REDUCED USING SI-METAL TO REPRODUCE MERCURIAN OXYGEN FUGACITY'S (7.3 TO 2.6 LOG10 UNITS BELOW THE IRON-WUSTITE BUFFER). WE WILL UTILIZE THE ELECTRON MICROPROBEALSO HOUSED AT UNM FOR ANALYSIS OF EACH EXPERIMENT INCLUDING QUENCHED MATERIALS METALS SULFIDES AND ALL NEAR LIQUIDUS PHASES. OUR RESEARCH AIMS TO ADDRESS THE BUILDING NEW WORLDS THEME WITHIN THE PLANETARY SCIENCE RESEARCH PROGRAM OF NASA'S SCIENCE MISSIONDIRECTORATE. OUR PROPOSED RESEARCH WILL MAKE ADVANCES TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING THE INTERNAL DIFFERENTIATION OF MERCURY BY DETERMINING THE SURFACE AND MANTLE MINERALOGY AND POSSIBLY THE SOURCE OF LAVAS FROM THE LARGEST VOLCANIC FIELD ON THE PLANET. FROM THIS DATA WE WILL BE ABLE TO PROVIDE INSIGHT INTO THE THERMAL EVOLUTION OF THE PLANET AS WELL AS POTENTIAL SCENARIOS IN THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE PLANET FOLLOWED BY SUBSEQUENT MELTING AND VOLCANISM. FROM THE CHEMICAL ANALYSES PERFORMED BY THE MESSENGER TEAM ON THE MERCURIAN SURFACE WE WILL BE ABLE TO IN TURN CONDUCT LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS THAT WILL LOOK AT THE INTERIOR AND DIFFERENTIATION HISTORY OF MERCURY TWO TOPICS PUT FORTH BY THE NASA'S PLANETARY RESEARCH PROGRAM. BY THE COMPLETION OF THIS STUDY WE WILL BE ABLE TO LEND INSIGHT INTO GAPS IN KNOWLEDGE THAT ARE REQUIRED TO COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENTIATION OF SUCH AN EXTREME PLANET THAT CAN ALSO BE USED AS A BASIS FOR FUTURE MISSIONS TO MERCURY. DR. FRANCIS MCCUBBIN IS THE ACTING ADVISOR ON THIS PROJECT AND DR. CARL AGEE IS THE PI FOR THISPROPOSAL.