Synthesis of monticellite–forsterite and merwinite–forsterite symplectites in the CaO–MgO–SiO2 model system: influence of temperature and water content on microstructure evolution

Homogeneous single crystals of synthetic monticellite with the composition \({\text{Ca}}_{0.88}{\text{Mg}}_{1.12}{\text{SiO}}_4\) (Mtc I) were annealed in a piston-cylinder apparatus at temperatures between 1000 and \(1200\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\), pressures of 1.0–1.4 GPa, for run durations from 10 min to 24 h and applying bulk water contents ranging from 0.0 to 0.5 wt% of the total charge. At these conditions, Mtc I breaks down to a fine-grained, symplectic intergrowth. Thereby, two types of symplectites are produced: a first symplectite type (Sy I) is represented by an aggregate of rod-shaped forsterite immersed in a matrix of monticellite with end-member composition (Mtc II), and a second symplectite type (Sy II) takes the form of a lamellar merwinite–forsterite intergrowth. Both symplectites may form simultaneously, where the formation of Sy I is favoured by the presence of water. Sy I is metastable with respect to Sy II and is successively replaced by the latter. For both symplectite types, the characteristic spacing of the symplectite phases is independent of run duration and is only weeakly influenced by the water content, but it is strongly temperature dependent. It varies from about 400 nm at \(1000\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\) to 1200 nm at \(1100\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\) in Sy I, and from 300 nm at \(1000\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\) to 700 nm at \(1200\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\) in Sy II. A thermodynamic analysis reveals that the temperature dependence of the characteristic spacing of the symplectite phases is due to a relatively high activation energy for chemical segregation by diffusion within the reaction front as compared to the activation energy for interface reactions at the reaction front. The temperature dependence of the characteristic lamellar spacing and the temperature-time dependence of overall reaction progress have potential for applications in geo-thermometry and geo-speedometry.