Quantitative texture analysis of slates: An insight into slate’s elastic properties and their contribution to the understanding of seismic wave reflections in anisotropic materials
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55407/geogaceta99820Keywords:
seismic anisotropy, reflection coefficient, crystal preferred orientation (OCP), slate, stiffness tensorAbstract
Slates are low-grade metamorphic rocks characterized by an alignment of the phyllosilicates, resulting in the development of a marked foliation. A consequence of this is a strong directional dependence of their elastic properties, which are tightly bound to their texture. The Rietveld analysis applied to synchrotron x-ray diffraction images of slates from the Truchas Syncline (NW Iberian Peninsula) will provide us with the orientation distribution function (ODF) of the principal minerals that constitute the rock. This textural analysis shows an exceptional alignment of phyllosilicates (muscovite and chlorite) in contrast with a poor orientation of other minerals such as quartz. In a later treatment of the data, the elastic properties of the slates, as well the variations of the seismic wave velocities, have been calculated from the ODF and the single crystal stiffness tensors. The results of both the elastic properties and the wave velocities can be used for the construction of models that allow to understand the reflections of seismic waves in markedly anisotropic materials, which is a matter of a great interest in the studies of the Earth’s lithosphere with seismic methods.
References
Aki, K., and Richards, P. G. (1980). Quantitative Seismology: Theory and Methods, vol. 1. W.H. Freeman and Co., 557 p.
Blangy, J.P. (1994). Geophysics, 59 (5), 775-781. https://doi.org/10.1190/1.1443635
Christoffel, E.B. (1877). Annali di Matematica Pura ed Applicata, 8, 193-243. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02420789
Cárdenes, V., Rubio-Ordóñez, A., Wichert, J., Cnudde, J.P., and Cnudde, V. (2014). Earth-Science Reviews, 138, 435-453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2014.07.003
Cárdenes, V., López-Sánchez, M.A., Barou, F., Olona, J., and Llana-Fúnez, S. (2021). Tectonophysics, 808, 228815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2021.228815
García-Guinea, J., Lombardero, M., Roberts, B., and Taboada, J. (1997). Transactions of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy B: Applied Earth Sciences, 106, 205-2014.
Forjanes, P., Gómez-Barreiro, J., Morales, J., Astilleros, J. M., & Fernández-Díaz, L. (2020). CrystEng Comm, 22(35), 5743-5759. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0CE00755B
Lutterotti, L., Vasin, R., and Wenk, H.R. (2014). Powder Diffraction, 29 (1), 76-84. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0885715613001346
Martínez-Catalán, J.R., Arenas, R., Abati, J., Sánchez-Martínez, S., Díaz-García, F., Fernández-Suárez, J., González-Cuadra, P., Castiñeiras, P., Gómez-Barreiro, J., Díez-Montes, A., González-Clavijo, E., Rubio-Pascual, F.J., Andonaegui, P., Jeffries, T.E., Alcock, J.E., h, Díez-Fernández, R., and López-Carmona, A. (2009). Comptes Rendus Geoscience, 341, 114-126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crte.2008.11.004
Mookherjee, M., and Mainprice, D. (2014). Geophysical Research Letters, 41, 1506-1513. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL059334
Tsvankin, I. (2001). Seismic signatures and analysis of reflection data in anisotropic media, 1st Edition. Pergamon, Oxford, 456 p.
Rietveld, H.M. (1969). Journal of Applied Crystallography, 2, 65-71. https://doi.org/10.1107/S0021889869006558
Wenk, H.R., Matthies, S., Donovan, J., and Chateigner, D. (1998). Journal of Applied Crystallography, 31, 262-269. https://doi.org/10.1107/S002188989700811X
Wenk, H.R., Kanitpanyacharoen, W., and Renc, Y. (2019). Journal of Structural Geology, 125, 319-324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsg.2017.12.009
Wenk, H.R., Yu, R., Cárdenes, V., López-Sánchez, M.A., and Sintubin, M. (2020). Journal of Structural Geology, 138, 104066. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsg.2020.104066
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The Author retains the copyright and grants to the Geological Society of Spain the right of first publication and distribution of this article for the duration of the literary property under Spanish law, in all current or future media, being the work available simultaneously to its publication, under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, which allows copying, transforming the work, but if any transformation is distributed, the new work must be distributed under the same license, and never for commercial purposes, while acknowledging the authorship and original publication in GEOGACETA, so that the only role of copyright is to give authors control over the integrity of their works and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.
