Recrystallization and Grain Growth in Rocks and Minerals

Abstract

Misorientation analysis, using EBSD data sets, has enabled us to constrain better recrystallization mechanisms in rocks and minerals. Observed microstructures are not explicable in terms of recovery, boundary bulging and migration alone. We have to invoke either a nucleation process (physics unknown) or grain rotations that are not related to grain or boundary crystallography. Such rotations can occur by diffusion accommodated grain boundary sliding and this mechanism explains best the microstructure and texture of recrystallized grains in some rocks.