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Fluid-driven metamorphism of the continental crust governed by nanoscale fluid flow

Nature Geoscience volume 10, pages 685–690 (2017)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 28 November 2018

Abstract

The transport of fluids through the Earth’s crust controls the redistribution of elements to form mineral and hydrocarbon deposits, the release and sequestration of greenhouse gases, and facilitates metamorphic reactions that influence lithospheric rheology. In permeable systems with a well-connected porosity, fluid transport is largely driven by fluid pressure gradients. In less permeable rocks, deformation may induce permeability by creating interconnected heterogeneities, but without these perturbations, mass transport is limited along grain boundaries or relies on transformation processes that self-generate transient fluid pathways. The latter can facilitate large-scale fluid and mass transport in nominally impermeable rocks without large-scale fluid transport pathways. Here, we show that pervasive, fluid-driven metamorphism of crustal igneous rocks is directly coupled to the production of nanoscale porosity. Using multi-dimensional nano-imaging and molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrate that in feldspar, the most abundant mineral family in the Earth’s crust, electrokinetic transport through reaction-induced nanopores (<100 nm) can potentially be significant. This suggests that metamorphic fluid flow and fluid-mediated mineral transformation reactions can be considerably influenced by nanofluidic transport phenomena.

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Figure 1: Massive fluid-induced feldspar replacement in the Larvik batholith, Norway.
Figure 2: Micro- and nano-structures of hydrothermal feldspar alterations and mineral replacement interfaces.
Figure 3: Nanopore channel network in replaced, secondary feldspar.
Figure 4: Molecular dynamics simulations of hydrodynamic and electrokinetic fluid flow through a feldspar nanopore.

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Acknowledgements

The paper greatly benefited from discussions with P. Meakin, H. E. King, A. Putnis, R. Wintsch and H. Austrheim. B.J. and O.P. thank R. Sørensen for providing the geologic map and S. Dahlgren and H. Austrheim for field work assistance. We thank B. Tutolo for a constructive review. O.P. was supported through a Veni grant (863.13.006), awarded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). A.B. acknowledges the support from the Research Council of Norway (221469). B.J. was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the ERC Advanced Grant Agreement (669972), ‘Disequilibrium Metamorphism’ (‘DIME’). Y.L. was supported by the Utrecht University Sustainability Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 4, 3584CD, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Oliver Plümper & Yang Liu

  2. Departments of Geosciences and Physics, Physics of Geological Processes (PGP), University of Oslo, Blindern, N-0136, Oslo, Norway

    Alexandru Botan, Anders Malthe-Sørenssen & Bjørn Jamtveit

  3. Centre for Materials Science and Nanotechnology, University of Oslo, Blindern, Oslo, N-0318, Norway

    Alexandru Botan

  4. Department of Geosciences, University of Bremen, Klagenfurter Strasse 2, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Catharina Los

  5. Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 1, 3584 CC, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Yang Liu

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O.P. and B.J. designed the research; O.P. and B.J. did the field work; O.P., C.L. and Y.L. collected and interpreted the microstructural and chemical data; A.B., O.P., B.J. and A.M.-S. developed the model; all authors participated in data interpretation; O.P. took the lead in writing the paper.

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Correspondence to Oliver Plümper.

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Plümper, O., Botan, A., Los, C. et al. Fluid-driven metamorphism of the continental crust governed by nanoscale fluid flow. Nature Geosci 10, 685–690 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo3009

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