A former association of enstatite and kyanite

SummaryAn enstatite-cordierite-sillimanite-quartz rock from a pyroxenegranulite facies terrain in southern Rhodesia gives evidence of at least two stages of recrystallization : an early, high-pressure recrystallization to form the assemblage enstatite-kyanite-quartz, and a later, ‘retrogressive’ recrystallization during which kyanite inverted to sillimanite, and cordierite was formed by reaction. The rock itself has ratios of R2+ : Al : Si that are virtually those of cordierite ; the recent data of Schreyer (1967) may thus be applied to the occurrence. The early kyanite-enstatite recrystallization occurred under pressures in excess of 10 kb, corresponding to depths greater than those of the continental Moho.

An experimental study of ordering in sodium-rich alkali feldspars

SummaryVariations in the value of 2θ131 – 2θ13̄1 of two anorthoclase feldspars of compositions Ab95Or5 and Ab90Or10 were investigated by hydrothermal crystallization of gels for long periods in the temperature range 500–950 °C, at water vapour pressures up to 15 000 lb/in.2. The results are compared to those obtained by MacKenzie (1957) for pure albite. It is shown that the variation in 2θ131 – 2θ13̄1 is largely the result of Al-Si order-disorder and that at 700 °C and above the magnitude of the variation in the anorthoclases suggests that the degree of order is like that in albite, but at lower temperatures, particularly below 600 °C, the variation is less, and the anorthoclases are less ordered than albite at the same temperatures. At 600 °C and above the rate of attainment of equilibrium is the same for all three compositions. Below 600 °C Ab95Or5 behaves differently to albite. At low temperatures the equilibrium degree of Al-Si order in mixed Na-K feldspars is a function of composition as well as of temperature of crystallization.