EXPERIMENTAL PETROLOGY

Introduction
- Experimental petrology deals with the laboratory methods of
generating synthetic melts or magmas.
- Its aim is to study the thermodynamic properties of artificial
magmas for understanding the development of igneous
textures and structures.
- It involves generation of artificial minerals, their mutual
relations and their association in generating igneous rocks.
- Some models of petrogenesis have been simulated in the
laboratory.
Experimental procedure
- The sample to form the synthetic melt is taken as a powder.
- Either from a natural rock sample
- Or mixing oxides in proper proportion approximating a
particular magma composition.
- The sample’s composition is predetermined before the
experiment.
- One gram of the sample is taken in an inert ceramic or glass
tube and vacuum sealed.
- The sample tube is placed within a coil of heat generating
electrodes.
- This is submerged in a refractory oil bath to create hydrostatic
or uniform pressure around the tube (or maintained within a
hollow inert cylinder) where the pressure is maintained
constant.
- The entire apparatus is sealed to prevent heat and loss of
pressure.
- A current of known strength is passed through the electrodes
which generates heat around the sample tube.
- The heat is increased above the calculated melting point of
the powder and is maintained until the entire powder is molten
and without any solid powder aggregates.
- The molten state is maintained until the powder has been
completely molten or melted. The experiment may be designed
to generate only one phase or two non-interfering phases.
- Now, the temperature is lowered in known increments with a
fixed time frame gradually.
- This may takes hours to days to weeks.
- The mineral/minerals or phase/phases begin to form when
their nucleation or crystallizing temperature range corresponds
to the range of incremental temperature decrease.
- This temperature may be maintained for a known period to
allow equilibrium between the generated phase/phases.
- When the incremental temperature has reached the
predetermined range or point, the experiment is stopped and
the sample is removed and submerged (quenched) into an inert
oil bath at room temperature.
- This rapid decrease in temperature during quenching
theoretically stops further reactions taking place and the
phases generated at the higher temperature (prior to removal)
is preserved at room temperature.
- During quenching, any liquid or un-crystallized melt that may
have been present at high temperature is converted to glass.
- After quenching, the sample tube is opened, sectioned and
the phases present are determined using a polarizing
microscope.
- The composition of the phases and glass is determined using
EPMA techniques.
- From the above experiment, we have the following data:
- temperature range of crystallization of the phase (A or B)
- or phases generated (A&B) – T°C,
- proportion of phase/phases to glass/ one phase to the other –
A+glass; B+glass;
- and proportion of solids – A only, B only, A+B solid;
- The composition of generated phases and that of the residual
glass is used to ascertain elemental distribution.
- For convenience we use different symbols to represent the
mineral phase assemblages present for each composition run
(experiment).
- In this set of experiments 10 different assemblages have been
generated, and their data points are plotted with temperature
plotted on the ‘y’ axis, and composition in terms of %A or %B
plotted on the ‘x’ axis.
- Pure A plots at 100% A which corresponds to 0% B, and pure B
plots at 100%B, which corresponds to 0% A.
- Once the data points (shown as symbols) are plotted, best-fit
curves or lines are drawn between them to determine the
Temperature – Composition stability fields for the various phase
assemblages.
- These curves/lines are shown here, and the stability fields for
each phase assemblage are labelled.
- The resulting phase diagram is called a binary diagram.
- The experiment is repeated several times by varying either
the temperature or sample composition or varying both
temperature and composition simultaneously.
- Data points are generated as discussed above and plotted in a
binary phase diagram as shown below.
- Figure 1 represents the binary diagram displaying the
crystallization of phases with eutectic relations without solid
solution.
- The A+ glass and B+ glass points represent liquidus curves of
phases A and B respectively.
- The A+B points represents the solidus curve for the phases A
and B.
- Figure 2 represents phases with solid solution relations.