Effect of crystallography and temperature on the development of quartz high-angle grain boundaries in metamorphic rocks

Abstract

Grain boundary migration during dynamic recrystallization of quartz results in grain boundary suturing of various extent. The geometry of the sutured boundaries is affected not only by temperature, strain rate, finite strain and differential stress, but also by internal properties such as the defect distribution and crystallographic orientations. Consequently, the grain boundary geometry may provide information about these conditions and properties. In continuation of a previous study (Kuntcheva et al.) the complete crystallographic orientation of quartz grain boundaries was measured, based on a combination of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and universal-stage (U-stage) measurements. For this purpose a sample of granite from the northern Aar Massif (Central Alps, Switzerland) was taken, deformed at temperatures up to 300–350°C at the end of the Lepontine event of the Alpine Orogenesis...