In Situ Thermal Characterization of Cooling/Crystallising Lavas During Rheology Measurement.

Abstract:

Transport properties of silicate melts at super-liquidus temperatures are reasonably well understood. Migration and transport of silicate melts in the earth’s crust and at its surface generally occur at sub-liquidus temperature regimes where they are subject to non-isothermal and non-equilibrium crystallization. To date, rheological data at sub-liquidus temperatures are scarce. In such dynamic situations heat capacities, latent heats of phase changes, viscous heating, thermal advection and thermal inertia of the apparatus are all potential factors in determining the thermal regime. Yet thermal characterisation of non- equilibrium conditions are absent, hampered by the inconvenience of recording in situ sample temperature during dynamic rheological measurements.

Here we present a new experimental setup for in situ sample temperature monitoring in high temperature rheometry. We overcome the limitation of hardwired thermocouples during sample deformation by employing wireless data transmitters directly mounted onto the rotating spindle, immersed in the sample. This adaptation enables in situ, real-time, observations of the thermal regime of crystallising, deforming lava samples under the transient and non-equilibrium crystallization conditions expected in lava flows in nature. We present the apparatus calibration procedure, assess the experimental uncertainty in viscosity measurements and discuss experimental data investigating the dynamic, rheologic and thermal evolution of lavas in both temperature step and continuous cooling experiments.