Effect of water on plastic deformation of anorthite in high pressure

Abstract

Presence of water enhances plastic deformation of minerals. We performed axial compression experiments on very fine grained (~3 μm) anorthite aggregates. We added water of 0.5 wt% and investigated the effects of water on mechanical properties of anorthite in high temperature and pressure conditions. Experiment with 0.5 wt%-added water shows significant strength reduction compared to the strength predicted by lower pressure experiments (Rybacki et al., 2006). This implies that the effect of water in higher pressure condition might be larger than those predicted by lower pressure experiments.