Hans-Rudolf Wenk, Amartya Kattemalavadi, Yiming Zhang, Ellis R. Kennedy, Olaf Borkiewicz
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Serpentine minerals have received a lot of attention because of their unique crystal structures, their wide occurrence in orogenic belts and their potential role in contributing seismic anisotropy in subducting slabs. Several studies have investigated crystal preferred orientation (CPO) in high temperature antigorite serpentinites from Japan, the Alps, Spain, Cuba and Tibet, documenting significant crystal alignment. However, only a limited number of lower grade serpentines have been explored to date. Mainly because of submicroscopic microstructural heterogeneities CPO cannot be measured with conventional methods such as optical microscopy and EBSD. In this study 15 serpentinites from different tectonic settings in California, the Central Alps and Northern Spain have been investigated, mainly with high energy synchrotron X-ray diffraction, to quantify bulk crystal alignment. We find that CPO is strong on sheared surfaces of fractured blocks and secondary veins but the bulk of most serpentinite samples, except high-grade recrystallized antigorite serpentinite, show only weak crystal alignment. Correspondingly calculated seismic anisotropy based on CPO is not very significant. This is supported by very heterogeneous microstructures as documented with SEM and TEM analyses.
期刊介绍:
Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology is an international journal that accepts high quality research papers in the fields of igneous and metamorphic petrology, geochemistry and mineralogy.
Topics of interest include: major element, trace element and isotope geochemistry, geochronology, experimental petrology, igneous and metamorphic petrology, mineralogy, major and trace element mineral chemistry and thermodynamic modeling of petrologic and geochemical processes.