Abstract
The importance of water in modifying the physico-chemical and mechanical properties of minerals has long been recognized. Water dramatically weakens quartz and enhances oxygen diffusion in silicates at high pressures and temperatures, with important geological consequences, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Recent attention has focused on the role of H2 and O2 in these mechanisms. Here we report the results of a study of the diffusion of oxygen in quartz at high pressure and temperature in the presence of water and of dry H2 gas, and compare the results with those of experiments in the presence of dry O2 gas. We conclude that oxygen diffusion is inhibited in the presence of dry H2 but enhanced in the presence of H2O, and deduce that fast H+ transients rather than H2 movement may be responsible for oxygen diffusion enhancement in framework silicates. Because of their high mobility, such transients may well be experimentally unquenchable within the silicate framework.
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