Abstract
Minerals and rocks form in a variety of temperature and pressure conditions within the earth. An understanding of their origin requires elementary knowledge of thermodynamic principles. The objective of this chapter is to introduce the student to such concepts; however, a rigorous thermodynamic treatment of mineral phase equilibrium is beyond the scope of this book. In this chapter the student will be exposed to geometrical techniques that can be used to understand the conditions of melting and crystallization in simplified mineral–melt systems that serve as analogs of magma formation and crystallization. The phase diagrams discussed in this chapter refer almost exclusively to igneous systems, i.e., crystallization of minerals from melts.
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Sen, G. (2014). Phase Relations in Simple Systems: Key to Magma Generation, Crystallization, and Mixing. In: Petrology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38800-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38800-2_3
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