Pressure solution
Pressure solution or pressure dissolution in structural geology and diagenesis is a deformation mechanism that involves the dissolution of minerals at grain to grain contacts into an aqueous pore fluid in areas of relatively high stress and either deposition in regions of relatively low stress within the same rock or their complete removal from the rock within the fluid. It is an example of diffusive mass transfer [1].
A detailed kinetics was reviewed by Rutter [2], and since such kinetics has been extended in many applications[3] in earth sciences.
Occurrence
Evidence for pressure solution has been described from sedimentary rocks that have only been affected by compaction. The most common example of this is bedding plane parallel stylolites developed in carbonates.
Tectonically deformed rocks also show evidence of pressure solution including stylolites at a high angle to bedding [4]. The process is also thought to be an important part of the development of cleavage.
See also
References
- ^ Rutter, E.H. 1983. Pressure solution in nature, theory and experiment. Journal of the Geological Society, London, 140, 725-740.
- ^ E. H. Rutter, The kinetics of rock formation by pressure solution, Phi. Trans. R. Lond. A., 283, 203-219 (1976)
- ^ X. S. Yang, Pressure solution in sedimentary basins: effect of temperature gradient, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 176, 233-243 (2000)
- ^ Railback, L.B. and Andrews, L.M. 1995. Tectonic stylolites in the ‘undeformed’ Cumberland Plateau of Southern Tennessee. Journal of Structural Geology. 17, 911-915.
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