An experimental investigation of olivine morphology

Results are reported for a morphological study of olivine and an experimental investigation performed to determine the degrees of supercooling and the cooling rates necessary to crystallize particular morphologies. Ten arbitrary categories of three-dimensional olivine crystal shape are identified: polyhedral, granular, hopper, chain, lattice, plate, branching, radiate, feather, and swallow-tail. The morphological study establishes that equant and tabular crystals are the common shapes of olivine, nonequant crystals are elongate parallel to the a or c axis, and skeletal crystals result when a particular form is missing or only partially developed. In the experiment, olivine crystals were grown by melting rock samples above their liquidus temperatures before initiating crystallization. The results show that olivine morphology changes systematically as a function of the degree of melt supercooling, the melt cooling rate, and the normative olivine and water contents of the melt. It is also found that each shape has a specific range of temperature stability which is essentially independent of melt composition.