In three shallow-level fault systems in eastern China, nano-sized (30―100 nm) grinding grain textures are found in the thin-shelled rheological layer representing frictional-viscous high strain field. The surface layer near slipping plane is composed of stacks of grinding grains with high sphericity and uniform nano-sized diameter, while the underlying layer appears as a mixture of irregular ones with diverse diameters. Rock deformation experiments indicate that the grinding grain texture is a common phenomenon in shearing fractures, suggesting a potential transition from sliding friction to rolling one during the rock deformation process. This transition is crucial for many tribological processes in geo- logical fields.
SUN YanSHU LiangShuLU XianCaiLIU HaoZHANG XiHuiK. KOSAKALIN AiMing
Based on the knowledge of the shallow-level mylonitization of detrital rocks and intrusive rocks, the poorly-known cataclastic rheology of carbonate rocks is discussed compre-hensively in this paper. The cases taken from eastern China are analyzed in various aspects including ductile-brittle fault zone, rock texture and structure, clastomylonite layer, leucocratic stress minerals, and frictional dynamometamorphism. It is proposed that the cataclastic flow structure represented by clastomylonite texture is a cooling pattern of flow assemblage charac-terized by cooling metamorphism, cooling mylonite and cooling stress minerals. Such a pattern is formed generally in mildly reducing physicochemical environments, and is commonly related to regional tectonism and mesothermal and epithermal mineralization.
LU Xiancai SUN Yan SHU Liangshu GU Lianxing GUO Jichun ZHU Wenbin
By observing four samples obtained from Jiangxi Province, China, under the scanning electron mi-croscope (SEM), we discovered that nano-particle layers were commonly formed on sliding planes of the penetrative foliation in metamorphic rocks. We also successfully reproduced this phenomenon with a tri-axial pressure experiment. Having gone through the granulitization-alienation-partition in the shear sliding process, the nano-particles (40-95 nm in diameter) display different individual shapes and dis-tinct layered textures. This nano-confinement layer is essentially a frictional-viscous stripe with vis-cous-elastic deformation. In the micro-domain stripe, activities in structural stress field-rheological physical field-geochemical field are very dynamic, corresponding to the three stages (i.e., shear sliding strengthening-weakening-exfoliating) of the foliation development in metamorphism rocks. As such, the viscous-elastic deformation behavior helps shed light on the understanding of the micro-dynamic mechanism of the structural shearing.
