Roebling Medal Lecture. The three partners of metamorphic petrology
Abstract
Study of the evolution of the Earth’s crust advanced greatly in the last half-century through the dynamic collaboration of three equally contributing partners: field observations, together with microanalysis of mineral assemblages, experimental petrology, and stability calculations based on systematically measured and compiled thermodynamic properties of minerals.
In addition to providing the initial inspiration for experimental and theoretical studies of petrogenesis, quantitative field observations have had an important feedback relationship with the indoor approaches. It has been demonstrated that physico-chemical properties of mineral systems can, in favorable circumstances, be inferred from purely geologic criteria, and, in some cases, field criteria have been used to challenge the validity of existing experimental or thermodynamic data, leading to reinvestigations and revisions. The “geo-experimental” method may be particularly useful to infer phase equilibrium relations among minerals where experimental reactions are prohibitively slow at geologically reasonable temperatures or where fluid fluxing of mineral reactions is necessarily limited, as in investigations concerning the low-H2O-activity deep-crustal rocks, the granulites.
Geo-experimental phase equilibrium diagrams, constructed largely from quantitative petrographic observations, have been successful in deducing polymorphism, order-disorder, and solid solution properties of such mineral systems as the aluminum silicate minerals, feldspars, epidote minerals, scapolites, and cordierite. The last minerals are particularly important in that they may retain a record of volatile components of an intergranular mineralizing fluid. Knowledge of the important effects of mixed volatile fluids has been inhibited by lack of experimental data on devolatilization, ion exchange, redox, sulfidation, and fluid-complexing reactions of the volatile-bearing minerals biotite, amphibole, apatite, scapolite, cordierite, carbonates, and sulfides with the major minerals of rocks of the deeper interior. A concerted approach among the experimental, thermodynamic, and petrographic disciplines is necessary to make progress on the still poorly understood role of volatiles in shaping the crust. The relatively young science of fluid inclusion analysis will have an increasingly important role in the interdisciplinary effort to interpret the evolution of the continental crust and its underpinnings.
© 2015 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Roebling Medal Lecture. The three partners of metamorphic petrology
- Relationship between structure, morphology, and carbon isotopic composition of graphite in marbles: Implications for calcite-graphite carbon isotope thermometry
- Crystal structure, mosaicity, and strain analysis of Hawaiian olivines using in situ X-ray diffraction
- Characterization of deep weathering and nanoporosity development in shale—A neutron study
- Structural water in ferrihydrite and constraints this provides on possible structure models
- Critical evaluation of the revised akdalaite model for ferrihydrite
- Neutron diffraction study of hydrogen in birnessite structures
- Pressless split-sphere apparatus equipped with scaled-up Kawai-cell for mineralogical studies at 10–20 GPa
- Dislocation microstructures in majorite garnet experimentally deformed in the multi-anvil apparatus
- Density of carbonated peridotite magma at high pressure using an X-ray absorption method
- Stability and bulk modulus of Ni3S, a new nickel sulfur compound, and the melting relations of the system Ni-NiS up to 10 GPa
- Far-infrared spectra of synthetic [4][(Al2-xGax)(Si2–yGey)](OH,OD,F)2-kinoshitalite: Characterization and assignment of interlayer Ba-Oinner and Ba-Oouter stretching bands
- High-temperature elasticity of polycrystalline orthoenstatite (MgSiO3)
- Anatomy of a metabentonite: Nucleation and growth of illite crystals and their coalescence into mixed-layer illite/smectite
- Zn-O tetrahedral bond length variations in normal spinel oxides
- A new thermodynamic analysis of the intergrowth of hedenbergite and magnetite with Ca-Fe-rich olivine
- Raman spectroscopic investigations of some Tl-sulfosalt minerals containing pyramidal (As,Sb)S3 groups
- A first record of strong structural relaxation of TO4 tetrahedra in a spinel solid solution
- The high-pressure behavior of orthorhombic amphiboles
- XAS determination of the Fe local environment and oxidation state in phonolite glasses
- Chemical variation and significance of micas from the Fregeneda-Almendra pegmatitic field (Central-Iberian Zone, Spain and Portugal)
- Light-induced molecular change in HgI2·As4S4: Evidence by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy
- Low-temperature electron paramagnetic resonance studies on natural calumetite from Khetri copper mine, Rajasthan, India
- Chromatite and its Cr3+- and Cr6+-bearing precursor minerals from the Nabi Musa Mottled Zone complex, Judean Desert
- Hazenite, KNaMg2(PO4)2⋅14H2O, a new biologically related phosphate mineral, from Mono Lake, California, U.S.A.
- The fractional latent heat of crystallizing magmas
Articles in the same Issue
- Roebling Medal Lecture. The three partners of metamorphic petrology
- Relationship between structure, morphology, and carbon isotopic composition of graphite in marbles: Implications for calcite-graphite carbon isotope thermometry
- Crystal structure, mosaicity, and strain analysis of Hawaiian olivines using in situ X-ray diffraction
- Characterization of deep weathering and nanoporosity development in shale—A neutron study
- Structural water in ferrihydrite and constraints this provides on possible structure models
- Critical evaluation of the revised akdalaite model for ferrihydrite
- Neutron diffraction study of hydrogen in birnessite structures
- Pressless split-sphere apparatus equipped with scaled-up Kawai-cell for mineralogical studies at 10–20 GPa
- Dislocation microstructures in majorite garnet experimentally deformed in the multi-anvil apparatus
- Density of carbonated peridotite magma at high pressure using an X-ray absorption method
- Stability and bulk modulus of Ni3S, a new nickel sulfur compound, and the melting relations of the system Ni-NiS up to 10 GPa
- Far-infrared spectra of synthetic [4][(Al2-xGax)(Si2–yGey)](OH,OD,F)2-kinoshitalite: Characterization and assignment of interlayer Ba-Oinner and Ba-Oouter stretching bands
- High-temperature elasticity of polycrystalline orthoenstatite (MgSiO3)
- Anatomy of a metabentonite: Nucleation and growth of illite crystals and their coalescence into mixed-layer illite/smectite
- Zn-O tetrahedral bond length variations in normal spinel oxides
- A new thermodynamic analysis of the intergrowth of hedenbergite and magnetite with Ca-Fe-rich olivine
- Raman spectroscopic investigations of some Tl-sulfosalt minerals containing pyramidal (As,Sb)S3 groups
- A first record of strong structural relaxation of TO4 tetrahedra in a spinel solid solution
- The high-pressure behavior of orthorhombic amphiboles
- XAS determination of the Fe local environment and oxidation state in phonolite glasses
- Chemical variation and significance of micas from the Fregeneda-Almendra pegmatitic field (Central-Iberian Zone, Spain and Portugal)
- Light-induced molecular change in HgI2·As4S4: Evidence by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy
- Low-temperature electron paramagnetic resonance studies on natural calumetite from Khetri copper mine, Rajasthan, India
- Chromatite and its Cr3+- and Cr6+-bearing precursor minerals from the Nabi Musa Mottled Zone complex, Judean Desert
- Hazenite, KNaMg2(PO4)2⋅14H2O, a new biologically related phosphate mineral, from Mono Lake, California, U.S.A.
- The fractional latent heat of crystallizing magmas
