Crystal–plastic deformation and recrystallization of peridotite controlled by the seismic cycle

Abstract

Deformed peridotites from the Balmuccia complex, Northern Italy, have been investigated by light and electron microscopy (SEM/EBSD, TEM). The peridotites show a heterogeneous and partly recrystallized microfabric associated with cataclastic shear zones. Intracrystalline deformation microstructures (undulatory extinction, crinkly deformation lamellae, deformation bands, kink bands) and recrystallized grains along intragranular zones in large original grains record a sequence with an initial stage of inhomogeneous glide-controlled deformation in the low-temperature plasticity regime associated with brittle deformation and a subsequent stage of recovery and recrystallization. The microstructural evidence of deformation of olivine in the low-temperature field indicates high stresses on the order of several hundred MPa and accordingly high strain rates. Subsequent recovery and recrystallization requires decreasing stresses and strain rates, as there is no evidence for a complex thermal history with increasing temperatures. A locally occurring foam structure in aggregates of recrystallized olivine indicates grain growth at very low differential stresses at a late stage. Such a stress history with transiently high and then decaying stresses is characteristic for coseismic deformation and postseismic creep just below the base of the seismogenic zone. The associated occurrence of pseudotachylytes and microstructures generated by crystal-plastic mechanisms is explained by semi-brittle behavior at transient high stresses and strain rates during coseismic loading at depths, where during postseismic relaxation and in interseismic periods the rocks are behaving by crystal-plastic flow. The consideration of high-stress deformation and subsequent recrystallization processes at decaying stresses in peridotites is especially relevant for earthquake-driven deformation in the mantle.