ABSTRACTIn 1965 Griggs and Blacic [1,2] proposed that there is a “hydrolytic weakening” process in quartz and silicates whereby the breaking of Si-O bonds, involved in the movement of dislocations, is facilitated by the presence of water. This proposal aimed to explain the observed dramatic weakening of quartz crystals when they are exposed to water in tests at high temperature, as well as the observed strong contrast in creep strength between dry natural quartz crystals and rapidly-grown synthetic quartz crystals containing traces of water. Such a “hydrolytic” process may also underlie the observed effects of water in accelerating other phenomena such as self-diffusion of oxygen in quartz, aluminium-silicon ordering in feldspars, slow crack propagation in silicates, and recrystallization in quartz. A review of this field is given in Reference 3.
