Abstract
Deformation of solid materials affects not only their microstructures, but also their microchemistries1,2,3,4,5. Although chemical unmixing of initially homogeneous multicomponent solids is known to occur during deformation by diffusion creep4,5, there has been no report on their chemical zoning due to deformation by dislocation creep, in either natural samples or laboratory experiments. Here we report striped iron zoning of olivine ((Mg,Fe)2SiO4) in deformed peridotites, where the iron concentration increases at subgrain boundaries composed of edge dislocations. We infer that this zoning is probably formed by alignment of edge dislocations dragging a so-called Cottrell ‘atmosphere’ of solute atoms3,6,7 (iron in this case) into subgrain boundaries during deformation of the olivine by dislocation creep. We have found that the iron zoning does not develop in laboratory experiments of high strain rates where dislocations move too fast to drag the Cottrell atmosphere. This phenomenon might have important implications for the generation of deep-focus earthquakes, as transformation of olivine to high-pressure phases preferentially occurs in high-iron regions, and therefore along subgrain boundaries which would be preferentially aligned in plastically deformed mantle peridotites.
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Acknowledgements
We thank K. Ozawa for critical reading of the manuscript, H. Ishisako for making thin sections, Y. Takahashi for his contribution to the XANES study at the KEK photon factory in Tsukuba, Japan, and N. Abe for supplying the specimens from the southern Alps. This study was supported by JSPS (J.A.).
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Ando, J., Shibata, Y., Okajima, Y. et al. Striped iron zoning of olivine induced by dislocation creep in deformed peridotites. Nature 414, 893–895 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/414893a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/414893a
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