Correlation of Elastic Moduli and Serpentine Content in Ultramafic Rocks
Department of Geology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 660506, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Geosciences 2019, 9(12), 494; https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9120494
Received: 30 September 2019 / Revised: 20 November 2019 / Accepted: 22 November 2019 / Published: 25 November 2019
(This article belongs to the Section Geophysics)
Understanding the physical properties of ultramafic rocks is important for evaluating a wide variety of petrologic models of the oceanic lithosphere, particularly upper mantle and lower crust. Hydration of oceanic peridotites results in increasing serpentine content, which affects lithospheric physical properties and the global bio/geochemical cycles of various elements. In understanding tectonic, magmatic, and metamorphic history of the oceanic crust, interpreting seismic velocities, rock composition, and elastic moduli are of fundamental importance. In this study, we show that as serpentine content increases, density decreases linearly with a slope of 7.85. Porosity of the samples does not show any systematic correlation with serpentine content, as it is more strongly affected by local weathering and erosional processes. We also correlate increase in serpentine content with a linear decline in shear, bulk, and Young’s moduli with slopes of 0.48, 0.77, and 0.45, respectively. Our results show that increase in serpentine content of mantle wedge and forearc mantle contributes to their brittle behavior and result in break-offs, obduction, and overthrusting. Therefore, serpentine content strongly affects tectonic processes at subduction zones, particularly serpentinization may be responsible for formation of weak fault zones. Also, serpentinization of fresh oceanic peridotite in slow and ultra-slow spreading ridges may be responsible for observed discontinuities in thin crust.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
Serpentinization; Elastic Moduli; Density; Ultramafic Rocks; Oceanic Lithosphere
▼
Show Figures
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
- Supplementary File 1:
PDF-Document (PDF, 897 KiB)
MDPI and ACS Style
Farough, A.; Karrasch, A.K. Correlation of Elastic Moduli and Serpentine Content in Ultramafic Rocks. Geosciences 2019, 9, 494.
AMA Style
Farough A, Karrasch AK. Correlation of Elastic Moduli and Serpentine Content in Ultramafic Rocks. Geosciences. 2019; 9(12):494.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFarough, Aida; Karrasch, Alexander K. 2019. "Correlation of Elastic Moduli and Serpentine Content in Ultramafic Rocks" Geosciences 9, no. 12: 494.
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
Search more from Scilit