Systematics of crack controlled mechanical properties for a suite of Conway granites from the White Mountains, New Hampshire

Abstract

The Conway granite of New Hampshire is a highly radioactive intrusive into which a 1-km deep borehole was drilled and continuously cored. The formation is composed of two major granitic units, the Osceola and the Conway; and it is cut by three lamprophyre dikes. The suite of rocks used in this paper contained eight granitic and two lamprophyre samples on which acoustic and strain measurements were performed over the pressure range of 1 atm. to 0.4 GPa. The V p data were subjected to cluster analyses to determine what, if any, similarities in pressure-dependence existed among the samples. Three distinct similarity groupings were found: the lamprophyre dike rocks and two groups each of which contains samples from both granitic units. These groupings by V p behavior were also found to correlate exactly with sample similarity groupings formed by dynamic and static moduli data, crack spectra, and rock texture. Such sample similarities in the functional forms of the pressure-dependence were found not to correlate with mineral modes nor with original in situ depth, but rather with grain size and the degree to which the mineral phases were homogeneously mixed. A consideration of the results suggests that for these rocks, grain size and mineral phase homogeneity exerted a dominant influence on crack population formation. Further, it appears that the exhumation and coring of these samples may have intensified the amount of cracking over that in situ but it did not necessarily introduce any individual distinct crack populations.