Experimental deformation of sintered albite above and below the order-disorder transition

Abstract

Purified albite powder (44-53 μm) has been sintered to form an albite polycrystal suitable for deformation studies close to the melting temperature. Experiments have been carried out in Griggs solid medium deformation apparatus at 800, 1020 °C and 700 MPa pressure in a dehydrating pyrophyllite confining medium at constant strain rates of 10−4, 10−5, 10−6 and 10−7/s. At 800 °C the samples were brittle-ductile whereas at 1020 °C they were ductile with a rheology well described by a power law with a stress exponent of 3. The transition from brittle-ductile to ductile also coincided with the order-disorder or low-high albite transition, as indicated by the marked increase in mechanical twinning on the albite law at high temperature. At 1020 °C high dislocation densities (10−10 - 10−11/cm2 and mechanical twinning characterised the original high albite grains, whereas fine recrystallised grains ( < 5 цm) had low dislocation densities (107 - 108/cm2) and often contained polysynthetic albite and pericline (M-type) twins. It is suggested that the recrystallized grains were monalbite (monoclinic) under test conditions which have inverted to high albite (triclinic) and in so doing produced M-twins, and that the recrystallization mechanism involved grain-boundary bulging to nucleate new high angle boundaries. The implications of the order-disorder transition for twinning and grain boundary migration are discussed and it is suggested that the data cannot be simply extrapolated to natural deformation in the low albite field.