Temperature dependences of hydrous species in feldspars

Abstract

Feldspars are abundant in the crust of the Earth. Multiple hydrogen species such as OH, H2O and NH4+ can occur in the structure of feldspars. Hydrogen species play a critical role in influencing some properties of the host feldspars and the crust, including mechanical strength, electrical property of the crust, and evolution of the crustal fluids. Knowledge of hydrous species in feldspars to date has been mostly derived from spectroscopic studies at ambient temperature. However, the speciation and sites of hydrous species at high temperatures may not be quenchable. Here, we investigated the temperature dependences of several typical hydrous components (e.g., type IIa OH, type IIb OH and type I H2O) in feldspars by measuring the in situ FTIR spectra at elevated temperatures up to 800 °C. We found that the hydrous species demonstrated different behaviors at elevated temperatures. With increasing temperature, type IIa OH redistributes on the various sites in the anorthoclase structure. Additionally, O–H vibration frequencies increase for types IIa and IIb OH, and they decrease for type I H2O with increasing temperature. In contrast to type I H2O which drastically dehydrates during the heating process, types IIa and IIb OH show negligible loss; however, the bulk integral absorption coefficients drastically decrease with increasing temperature. These results may have implications in understanding the properties of hydrous species and feldspars at non-ambient temperatures, not only under geologic conditions but also at cold planetary surface conditions.