•OURNALOF GEOPItYSICAL

RESEARCIt VOL. 70, No. 16 AUGUST 15, 1965

The Thermal Conductivity of Fifteen Feldspar Specimens

J. H. SAss

GeophysicsDepartment, University o/ Western Ontario, London

There is often a discrepancybetween the claseaggregatesby Birch and Clark [1940]) is

measuredthermal conductivity of a rock and not representativeof feldsparsas a whole.
its conductivity as computed from the relative This note presents the results of measure-
abundances and the assumed conductivities of ments on fifteen specimensof feldspar, thirteen
its constituentminerals [cf. Birch and Clark, from single crystals and two from aggregatesof
1940; Beck and Beck, 1958; Dimeni ei al., average grain size I to. 2 mm. The measure-
1965]. In many cases,this is probably the re- ments were performed (at a mean specimen
sult of uncertainties in the conductivities of temperature of 25øC) with the divided bar ap-
major minerals. Measured values of pyroxencs paratus describedby Beck [1957]. The values
[Birch and Clark, 1940; Dimeni, 1964] vary are relative to Ra•cliffe's [1959] conductivity-
from 8 to 12 (the units mcal/cm sec øC are temperature curve for quartz with heat flow-
used throughout), and there are large uncer- ing perpendicular to, the optic axis, and are
tainties in the conductivities of micas. In the subjectto an experimentaluncertainty of about
case of granites, whose major constituenlsare
feldspars, measured conductivities are fre- Table 1 showsthe present results and those
quentlymuchhigherthan computedones,which of Birch and Clark [1940]. TWo of the single
suggeststhat the commonlyquoted value of 4.5 crystals were large enough so tha• three disks
(the a.verageof four measurementson plagio- could be obtained in different orientations. The

TABLE 1. Thermal Conductivity of Feldspars at 25øC

Heat Flow K,
Mineral Locality Normal to mcal/cm sec øC

Present Work
Orthoclase Plenty River, 100 5.8
Northern Territory, 010 6.4
Australia 001 6.0
Orthoclase Olary, S. Australia 100 5.4
Orthoclase Broken Hill, N.S.W. 001 5O
Microcline Londonderry, W. Australia 001 55
Microcline ? 001 65
Microcl. perthire Londonderry, W. Australia 100 52
010 69
001 63
Microcl. perthire Spargoville, W. Australia 001 5.9
Albite Londonderry, W. Australia Aggreg. 5.6
Oligoclase LangesurdFjord, Norway 001 4.8
Bytownite Crystal Bay, Minnesota Aggreg. 3.9
Anorthite Albany, New York 001 6.5

Birch and Clark [1940]

AbssAN•. Sylmar, Pennsylvania Aggreg. 4.8
Ab40An60 Quebec Aggreg. 4.2
Ab35An65 Montana Aggreg. 4.0
Ab20Ans0 Transvaal Aggreg. 4.4

4064
 LETTERS
orientationsof the disk faces were parallel to
the crystal faces. Although the conductivity
ellipsoidof a feldsparcrystal is not necessarily
coaxialwith the crystal itself, the crystal faces
are the most convenientreferenceplanes a•d
the conductivitiesperpendicularto the faces
shouldgive someidea of the anisotropy.Both
crystalsare anisotropicwith the minimum con-
ductivity perpendicularto the 100 face and the
maximum perpendicular to 010.
The arithmetic mea• of the fifteen values is
5.7 _ 0.2. The variationsin conductivityamong
the differentsamplesmay be causedpartly by
variations in fine structure, such as twinning.
No simple relationshipbetween chemical com-
positionand conductivityis apparent; however, Beck, A. E., A steady state method for the rapid
some tentative correlations can be made:
1. K feldspars appear to have a rather
higherconductivitythan plagioclases,
the aver-
ages being 5.9 _4-0.2 and 4.8 _4-0.3.
2. The end membersof the plagioclaseser-
ies may have higher conductivitiesthan min-
erals of intermediate compositionsinceboth the
albite and anorthite specimenshave higher
conductivitiesthan the other plagioclases(in-
cluding those measuredby Birch and Clark).
3. The conductivity perpendicular to the
001 face of an oligoclasecrystal is the same as
that measuredby Birch and Clark for an oligo- 1964.
elaseaggregate(Ab88)of grain size 0.6 mm. Diment, W. It., R. Rasper, M. A. Mayhew, and
The main conclusionarising from thesemeas-
urements is that the range of variation of the
thermal conductivitiesof feldsparsis greater
than was hitherto, suspected.Thus, the dis-
erepaneiesbetween computed and measured
conductivitiesmay be, in part, the result of
4065
usingtoo low a feldsparvalue in the computa-
tion. The resultsof Table 1 certainly indicate
that, in some cases,the feldspar conductivity
may be considerablyhigher than the com-
monly quoted value of 4.5.
Acknowledgments.This work was done as part
of a Ph.D. program at the Australian National
University, Canberra. I am indebted to the Uni-
versity for financial support and to ProfessorJ. C.
Jaeger for guidance and criticism. I thank Mr.
I.D. Martin, who supplied the feldspar samples
from Western Australia, and Dr. A. J. R. White,
who supplied the other samples.
P•EFERENCES
measurement of the thermal conductivity of
rocks, J. Sci. Instr., 34, 186-189, 1957.
Beck, A. E., and J. M. Beck, On the measurement
of the thermal conductivities of rocks by ob-
servations on a divided bar apparatus, Trans.
Am. Geophys. Union, 39, 1111-1123,1958.
Birch, F., and It. Clark, The thermal conductivity
of rocks and its dependence on temperature and
composition,Am. J. Sci., 238, 529-558, 613-635,
1940.
Diment, W. It., Thermal conductivity of serpen-
tinitc from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, and other
localities,A Study o/Serpentinite: the AMSOC
Core Hole near Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Natl.
Acad.Sci.---Natl.Res.CouncilPubl. 1188,92-106,
R. W. Werre, Terrestrialheat flow near Alberta,
Virginia, J. Geophys.Res., 70, 923-929, 1965.
Ratcliffe, E. tt., Thermal conductivities of fused
and crystallinequartz, Brit. J. Appl. Phys., 10,
22-25, 1959.
(Received May 15, 1965.)