Abstract
The compositions of olivine grain boundaries have been analyzed with scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) via energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrum profiling in three specimens: a peridotite ultramylonite, olivine phenocrysts in a basaltic rock, and synthesized compacts of olivine + diopside. Composition profiles across grain boundaries in both natural and synthetic samples exhibit a characteristic width of 5 nm and a depletion of Mg and concomitant enrichments of Ca, Al, Ti, and Cr. Chemical segregation is known to affect grain boundary processes such as grain boundary diffusion, sliding, fracture, and migration, all of which influence the rheological properties of polycrystalline aggregates. Also, because grain boundaries are enriched in trace elements, the boundaries can be important storage sites for such elements in mantle rocks. Mantlederived melts with unusual compositions, such as those rich in Ca and/or Ti, might be explained by preferential melting of olivine grain boundaries enriched in these elements. The common chemical signatures at grain boundaries in all samples indicate that chemical segregation is an energetically favorable phenomenon and thus should occur elsewhere in Earth’s mantle. Segregation of trace elements to grain boundaries may play an important role in dynamical and geochemical processes in Earth’s mantle.
© 2015 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
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Articles in the same Issue
- Bonding preferences of non-bridging O atoms: Evidence from 17O MAS and 3QMAS NMR on calcium aluminate and low-silica Ca-aluminosilicate glasses
- BNa–BLi solid-solution in A-site-vacant amphiboles: synthesis and cation ordering along the ferri-clinoferroholmquistite–riebeckite join
- A new uranyl carbonate sheet in the crystal structure of fontanite, Ca[(UO2)3(CO3)2O2](H2O)6
- XANES calibrations for the oxidation state of iron in a silicate glass
- Dissolution of strontianite at high P-T conditions: An in-situ synchrotron X-ray fluorescence study
- Intergrown niobian rutile phases with Sc- and W-rich ferrocolumbite: An electron-microprobe and Rietveld study
- Bulk moduli and high-pressure crystal structures of minium, Pb3O4, determined by X-ray powder diffraction
- Slow oxygen diffusion rates in igneous zircons from metamorphic rocks
- Chemistry of grain boundaries in mantle rocks
- Heats of mixing of silicate liquid in the systems diopside-anorthite-akermanite, diopside-anorthite-forsterite, and diopside-silica
- High-pressure crystal structure of kosmochlor, NaCrSi2O6, and systematics of anisotropic compression in pyroxenes
- Monte Carlo simulations of ordering of Al, Fe, and Mg cations in the octahedral sheet of smectites and illites
- Influence of F content on the composition of Al-rich synthetic phlogopite: Part II. Probing the structural arrangement of aluminum in tetrahedral and octahedral layers by 27Al MQMAS and 1H/19F-27Al HETCOR and REDOR experiments
- Dawsonite: An inclusion mineral in quartz from the Tin Mountain pegmatite, Black Hills, South Dakota
- Hydrogen-bonded water in laumontite II: Experimental determination of site-specific thermodynamic properties of hydration of the W1 and W5 sites
- High P-T phase relations and stability of a (21)-hydrous clinopyribole in the system K2ONa2O- CaO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2-H2O: An experimental study to 18 GPa
- The crystal chemistry of julgoldite-Fe3+ from Bombay, India, studied using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction and 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy
- Partitioning of Sr, Ba, Rb, Y, and LREE between plagioclase and peraluminous silicic magma
- Infrared and TEM characterization of amphiboles synthesized near the tremolite-pargasite join in the ternary system tremolite-pargasite-cummingtonite
- Coupling between non-convergent ordering and transition temperature in the C2/c ↔ P21/c phase transition in pigeonite
- 57Fe Mössbauer-effect studies of Ca-rich, Fe-bearing clinopyroxenes: Part I. Paramagnetic spectra of magnesian hedenbergite
- 57Fe Mössbauer-effect studies of Ca-rich, Fe-bearing clinopyroxenes: Part II. Magnetic spectra of magnesian hedenbergite
- 57Fe Mössbauer-effect studies of Ca-rich, Fe-bearing clinopyroxenes: Part III. Diopside
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- Studtite, [(UO2)(O2)(H2O)2](H2O)2: The first structure of a peroxide mineral
- Nanometer-scale measurements of iron oxidation states of cronstedtite from primitive meteorites