Results

Aqueous fluid pathways in rocks
Lorena Hernández-Filiberto
Institut für Mineralogie, University of Münster

It is now known that the presence of aqueous fluids is common in the Earth’s crust. Fractures, grain boundaries and porosity enable fluids to penetrate through the rocks as water continues to migrate from its source. This fluid-rock interaction leads to relevant processes, such as potential mineral replacements, the formation of new minerals, element mobilization, the generation of new fluid pathways, and subsequent variations in rock density. Evidence for such interactions are commonly found in many rock samples as well as in laboratory experiments.
Using light microscopy as well as SEM and EDX analysis we present our first analysis of fluid-rock interactions. With both Carrara Marble samples used in hydrothermal experiments and a set of samples of a granulite sequence from the Bergen Arcs in Norway, we have looked for possible fluid pathways and evidence for fluid-mineral reactions as well as attempting to elucidate the mechanisms that could explain such processes.