Adcumulus dunite growth in a laboratory thermal gradient

Abstract

Laboratory experiments near 1450° C at 1 bar (QFM) on komatiite bulk composition show olivine and liquid in cumulus textures which evolve with experiment duration. Orthocumulus texture with settled olivine crystals separated by liquid matrix is developed within a day. Experiments quenched after a few days to a week show a progression of textures which include development of columns of olivine crystals separated by channels of liquid. Olivine grain sizes increase with the cube root of time suggesting that dissolution and reprecipitation of olivine may be involved in the organization into columns and channels. Experiments quenched after two weeks have well developed adcumulus texture. The basal polycrystalline granular olivine aggregate forms from the decay of the olivine columns. Melt expulsion from the aggregate can be virtually complete, leaving 1% or less of the melt originally present.

Buoyancy-driven compaction of olivine is not the mechanism responsible for this textural evolution because the final basal aggregate sometimes contains vesicles. An addition proof of the inadequacy of buoyancy is provided by raising the crucible slightly above the thermal symmetry point of the furnace. The aggregate then compacts on top of a crystal-free liquid. The thermal gradients above and below the furnace hot spot are thought to be primarily responsible for the olivine redistributions observed. Diffusion of olivine components in the liquid is driven along a saturation gradient resulting from the temperature gradient. The process, called thermal migration in geological literature, is essentially the same as traveling solvent zone refining in metallurgy. Differential solubility and Soret fractionation both contribute to olivine redistribution to the cold region of the crystal-liquid aggregate. There may be some applications of these results to natural cumulate rock petrogenesis.