Microstructures in rocks and rock analogues: EBSD analysis as a key for the understanding of formation processes

Richard Spiess (a)
(a) Department of Geosciences , University of Padova, Via Gradenigo, 6, 35131, Padova, Italy. Corresponding email: Richard.spiess@unipd.it

Microstructures are the fingerprints of petrological and deformational processes preserved within rocks, but their understanding may not be straightforward. One way to face this problem is to deform analogue materials under known conditions and to analyze the forming microstructures. Important information on nucleation, growth and deformation mechanisms can be gained from absence or presence of crystallographic preferred orientations (CPOs) of the material forming mineral phases. In the case of existing CPOs, their pattern may suggest important hints regarding activity of slip systems, vorticity, resolved shear stresses, deformation temperature and strain rate. However fully understanding these hidden information may require numerical simulation of the CPOs . The author has chosen to study deformation microstructures by the use of EBSD on natural and synthetic materials, and to simulate formation of CPOs by applying D-Rex on lower crustal rocks and high temperature rock analogues.

Calabria basement, CPO, diffusion creep, EBSD, melt channelling shear zones, D-Rex simulations.