Crystal distribution patterns and their anisotropy behaviour in igneous rocks: towards an automated quantification, first results

Abstract

Since approximately two decades fractal geometry offers tools for the quantification of rock fabrics, and new methods are currently under development to investigate the inhomogeneity of crystal distributions, grain- and phase-boundary patterns as well as their anisotropy behaviour (Kruhl et al. 2004). These methods are now adapted for automated processing and suitable to quantify the inhomogeneity and anisotropy of rock fabrics from macro to microscale. Applications for quantifying inhomogeneity are mainly based on the box-counting and map-counting (Peternell 2002) methods, for anisotropy behaviour mainly based on modified Cantor-dust methods and provide fractal dimensions, fractal-dimension isolines and azimuthal anisotropies of fractal dimension (AAD, Volland & Kruhl 2004). For instance, the results provide information about the local variations of fabric patterns and their prefer orientation behaviour at macro and microscale.