Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T02:13:20.629Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Supercooling and the crystallization of plagioclase, olivine, and clinopyroxene from basaltic magmas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

G. M. Corrigan*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 3JD

Abstract

Effects of supercooling have been studied in a range of basaltic melts by isothermal and constant cooling rate experiments at one-atmosphere, using the wire-loop container method. The nucleation of plagioclase in these melts is systematically controlled by supercooling (-ΔT), time below the liquidus temperature, and initial superheating (+ΔT). The temperature at which the melt is initially superheated prior to supercooling controls the temperature at which crystal nucleation first takes place in a supercooled melt undergoing cooling; the greater the + ΔT the larger the degree of supercooling required prior to nucleation of the liquidus phase during cooling. In all six compositions investigated there are at least two fields in time-temperature space, one in which the liquidus phase always fails to nucleate on supercooling (favoured by small -ΔT) and one (favoured by large -ΔT) in which it always nucleates. These two fields may be separated by another in which the liquidus phase may or may not crystallize. Supercooling phenomena are not restricted to the liquidus phase but can also occur when the melt becomes saturated with subsequent phases. It is shown that the composition of plagioclase varies systematically with -ΔT and it is demonstrated that isothermal supercooling ‘lines’ can be used with a relatively high degree of accuracy to predict when nucleation of the liquidus phase will take place during constant cooling rate experiments.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Present address: 22 Newbould Lane, Broomhill, Sheffield, S10 2PL.

References

Biggar, G. M., O'Hara, M. J., Peckett, A., and Humphries, D. J. (1971 Proc. Second Lunar Sci. Conf., Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 1, 617–43.Google Scholar
Chalmers, B. (1964 Principles of solidification. Wiley, New York.Google Scholar
Corrigan, G. M. (1980 Ph.D. Thesis, University of Sheffield.Google Scholar
Corrigan, G. M. and Gibb, F. G. F. (1979 Mineral. Mag. 43, 121–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darken, L. S., and Gurry, R. W. (1945 J. Am. Chem. Soc. 67, 1398–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donaldson, C. H. (1978 Pro#. Exp. Petrol. 4 (NERC), 1316.Google Scholar
Donaldson, C. H. (1979 Contrib. Mineral. Petrol. 69, 2132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fudali, R. F. (1965 Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 29, 1063–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibb, F. G. F. (1974 Mineral. Mag. 39, 641–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gingrich, N. S. (1965 In: T. J. Hughel: Liquids; Structure, properties, solid interactions, 172200. Elsevier, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, J. R. (1953 J. Geol. 61, 439–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, D. L., and Anderson, G. M. (1967 In: H. H. Hess and A. Poldervaart: Basalts, 445–82 Wiley, New York.Google Scholar
Hawkes, D. D. (1967 Geol. Mag. 104, 473–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkpatrick, R. J., Robinson, G. R., and Hays, J. F. (1976 Geophys. Res. 81, 5715–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lillie, H. R., and Ritland, H. N. (1954 J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 37, 466–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lofgren, G. E. (1974 Am. J. Sci. 274, 243–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lofgren, G. E. and Donaldson, C. H. (1975 Trans. Am. Geophys. Union 56, 468.Google Scholar
McBirney, A. R., and Noyes, R. M. (1979 J. Petrol. 20, 487554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morey, G. W. (1954 The properties of glass. Reinhold, New York.Google Scholar
Mullin, J. W. (1972 Crystallisation. Butterworths, London.Google Scholar
Mullin, J. W. and Raven, K. D. (1961 Nature Phys. Sci. 190, 251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullin, J. W. (1962 Ibid. 195, 35–8.Google Scholar
Schairer, J. F. (1959 In Physicochemical measurements at high temperatures. Butterworths, London.Google Scholar
Shaw, H. R. (1972 Am. J. Sci. 272, 870–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swanson, S. E. (1977 Am. Mineral. 62, 966–78.Google Scholar
Tumbull, D. (1948 Trans. AIME 175, 744–83.Google Scholar
Wager, L. R. (1959 Geol. Mag. 96, 7580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wager, L. R. and Brown, G. M. (1968 Layered igneous rocks. Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Walker, D., Kirkpatrick, R. J., Longhi, J., and Hays, J. F. (1976 Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 87, 646–56.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar