What is Petrolog?

Installation and licencing

Q. How much does Petrolog4 licence cost?

A. Please see the Pricing section of this website

Q. Is the full version of Petrolog4 free?

A. No, using the full version of Petrolog4 requires purchasing an annual licence.

Q. Are there any benefits for those users who purchase a licence for Petrolog4?

A. Yes, in addition to having access to all features of the software, Petrolog4 licence holders receive priority support and can submit requests for adding new models and features to Petrolog4.

Q. Petrolog4 does not remember the licence information and keeps requesting licence information while I run the program. Is this the expected behaviour?

A. No, Petrolog4 checks for licence once every time the program is started, and it would not request the licence information after the first time it was entered, if the same user is logged on to the computer that runs Petrolog4.
The above behaviour may be observed if Petrolog4 is placed in a shared/managed folder, i.e., a folder that is administered by OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, or other file sharing software.
We suggest making a folder C:\Petrolog4 or C:\Programs\Petrolog4 and running Petrolog4 from that folder.

Q. What are the differences between the full and Demo versions of Petrolog4?

A. The Demo version has full modelling capabilities for all calculation options but diffusion re-equilibration of melt inclusions in olivine.
The Demo version does not allow for loading starting compositions from files, saving the results of calculations to files, saving sets of calculation parameters for future use, or loading sets of calculation parameters .

Q. What is Friendly Solutions?

A. Friendly Solutions is an Australian small business run by Leonid Danyushevsky.

Q. Can Petrolog4 start with my preferred set of parameters?

A. Yes, save your preferred set of parameters as the Default parameter set (use 'Save parameters as the Default set' option under the File menu). After that, Petrolog4 will load this set of parameters every time you start the software.

Q. Can I stop loading the Default set of parameters when I start Petrolog4?

A. Yes, you can delete (or rename) Default.PtlParam file from the folder where you keep Petrolog executable file.

Q. Does it matter which model for the oxidation state of Fe in the melt is chosen for calculation?

A. Yes, this affects the compositions of Fe-Mg minerals and calculated pseudo-liquidus temperatures and compositions of some oxide minerals. For more details see ‘Does it matter which model for the extent of Fe oxidation in silicate melt is chosen for calculations?’ presentation and ‘Defining melt oxidation state during calculations’ tutorial.

Q. Does it matter which model for sulphide saturation of silicate melt is chosen for calculation?

A. Yes, this may have a significant impact on the inferred timing of sulphide saturation, the calculated amount of immiscible sulphide, and the predicted trends of S, Ni and Cu contents during crystallisation. For more details see ‘Does it matter which model for sulphide saturation of silicate melt is chosen for calculations?’ presentation.

Q. Can Petrolog4 model crystallisation during magma ascent?

A. Yes, Petrolog4 offers two different approaches to controlling pressure during crystallisation. Pressure can either be defined as a function of magma temperature or as a function of the extent of crystallisation. For more details see ‘Controlling pressure during calculations’ tutorial.

Melt Inclusion modelling

Q. Are there changes to the Melt Inclusion modelling in Petrolog4 compared to Petrolog3?

A.

Yes, the diffusion coefficient for Fe-Mg inter-diffusion in olivine is calculated as a function of temperature and olivine composition in Petrolog4, derived using a linear regression of experimental data from from Chakraborty (1997). The equation is presented in the Manual.

Petrolog4 allows for modelling diffusive re-equilibration with a specific cooling rate over a cooling interval of up to 400 oC, whereas in Petrlog3 the cooling interval is limited to 100 oC.