vbid/9789400755451

Description

This book sets out the basic materials science needed for understanding the plastic deformation of rocks and minerals.� Although at atmospheric pressure or at relatively low environmental pressures, these materials tend to be brittle, that is, to fracture with little prior plastic deformation when non-hydrostatically stressed, they can undergo substantial permanent strain when stressed under environmental conditions of high confining pressure and high temperature, such as occur geologically in the Earth�s crust and upper mantle.� Thus the plastic deformation of rocks and minerals is of fundamental interest in structural geology and geodynamics.� In mountain-building processes and during convective stirring in the Earth�s mantle, rocks can undergo very large amounts of plastic flow, accompanied by substantial changes in microstructure.� These changes in microstructure remain in the rocks as evidence of the past deformation history.� There are a number of types of physical processes whereby rock and minerals can undergo deformation under geological conditions.� The physics of these processes is set out in this book.Typham this is the title: Materials Science for Structural Geology