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Intergranular basaltic melt is distributed in thin, elogated inclusions
Author(s) -
Faul Ulrich H.,
Toomey Douglas R.,
Waff Harve S.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/93gl03051
Subject(s) - olivine , melt inclusions , partial melting , basalt , triple junction , geology , mineralogy , oblate spheroid , ultramafic rock , materials science , ellipse , aspect ratio (aeronautics) , composite material , geometry , geophysics , geochemistry , physics , mathematics , atomic physics
We describe a method to analyze the melt distribution in experimentally produced ultramafic partial melts. It is shown that the melt inclusions can be approximated by ellipses in two dimensions and by penny‐shaped ellipsoids in three dimensions. The aspect ratios of these ellipses (the ratio of the minor to the major axis) can in turn be used to calculate bulk physical properties of partial melts. We apply this method to two olivine‐basalt samples with 3.2% and 0.75% melt fraction. In the samples analyzed approximately 75% of the melt is contained in inclusions with much smaller aspect ratios than triple junction tubules. The reduction of P‐wave velocities calculated for this melt distribution is twice as large as for melt distributed solely in triple junction tubules.