EGU22-6103
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-6103
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

The role of mechanics in the modelling of common rock microstructures

Lucie Tajcmanova1, Yury Podladchikov2, and Ivan Utkin3,4
Lucie Tajcmanova et al.
  • 1Institute of Earth Sciences, Heidelberg University, Germany (lucie.tajcmanova@geow.uni-heidelberg.de)
  • 2Institute of Earth Science, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 3Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
  • 4ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Understanding rocks at the microscale is essential to comprehending Earth's history and making reasonable predictions about how planetary processes may change in the future.  

Advanced models for complex rock microstructures, such as symplectites or a development of exsolution lamellae, have been developed (Kuhl & Schmid, 2007; Petrishcheva & Abart, 2009). Despite of this recent valuable progress in our understanding of these microstructures, the mechanisms controlling its evolution especially from slowly cooled rocks are still not complete.

Commonly, such models focus solely on the chemical process. Interestingly, mechanics, i.e. stress and pressure redistribution, may also play an important role on microstructure evolution. In this contribution, we investigate the coupled, chemo-mechanical, effect for representative rock microstructures. We provide a comparison between purely chemical vs. coupled chemo-mechanical systems and provide predictions on the evolution of the given microstructures in 3D.

References:

Kuhl, E., Schmid, D.W. (2007). Computational Modeling of Mineral Unmixing and Growth. Comput Mech 39, 439–451.

Petrishcheva, E., & Abart, R. (2009). Exsolution by Spinodal Decomposition I: Evolution Equation for Binary Mineral Solutions with Anisotropic Interfacial Energy. American Journal of Science, 309(6), 431-449.

 

How to cite: Tajcmanova, L., Podladchikov, Y., and Utkin, I.: The role of mechanics in the modelling of common rock microstructures, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-6103, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-6103, 2022.