Single-Crystal Elasticity of Earth Materials: An Appraisal

Abstract:

The elastic properties of minerals are of central importance for interpreting seismic data for the Earth’s crust, mantle, and core. Mineral elasticity data also have more general applications towards understanding equations of state, phase equilibria, interatomic forces, material strength, and phase transitions. The singe-crystal elastic properties are the most generally useful as they provide complete information on the anisotropy of elastic moduli (e.g. Poisson’s ratio, Young’s modulus), sound velocities, and compressibility. Measurement of the full set of single-crystal elastic properties remains challenging especially for lower symmetry crystals. In this talk, I present an overview of our current understanding of single-crystal elasticity based on a newly constructed database of single-crystal elastic properties. At ambient conditions the full elastic tensor of about 150 minerals have now been measured, along with about another 60 related compounds that are not formally minerals. About two-thirds of the measured minerals are oxides or silicates. A limitation of the existing database is that only about 10% of the measurements are on crystals of monoclinic or triclinic symmetry, while these two systems account for about 40% of known minerals. Additionally, only a smaller subset of minerals have been examined at high pressure or temperature conditions. Several applications of the database will be presented emphasizing trends in elastic anisotropy. The pyroxenes will be used as an illustrative example.