• Breaking Ground in Geological Specimen Studies

Laboratory Products

Breaking Ground in Geological Specimen Studies

Jul 12 2011

Linkam Scientific Instruments report the use of their 1400°C high temperature stage to study silicate melt inclusions in the Fluids Research Group of the Geosciences Department at Virginia Tech. Researchers in the Fluids Research Group at Virginia Tech are concerned with the distribution, properties and role of fluids in and on the Earth, from its surface to its deep interior. One of the research goals is to understand how volcanoes erupt. The volatile content of a magma chamber beneath a volcano is of paramount importance because it determines the energy of the volcanic eruption. If the volatile content of the magma beneath a volcano
can be predicted, then it is possible to predict the style of future eruptions and use this information in risk assessments.

The only direct way to determine what the volatile content in the magma chamber was before an eruption is by measuring the volatile content in melt inclusions (MI). It is only possible to determine the volatile content of the MI if it remains as a homogeneous quenched melt (glass) as it cools following eruption from the magma chamber.

Unfortunately, MI are often found partially or totally recrystallised. Thus, with some exceptions, one cannot analyse a MI to obtain a representative composition of the volatile content of the melt. However, a crystallised melt inclusion can be heated in a controllable temperature stage to re-melt the contents and then rapidly quench the MI to a homogenous glassy state. In this process, the volatiles are dissolved back into the melt and the quenched glass will have the same volatile abundance as it did at the moment of entrapment in the magma chamber.

Professor Bob Bodnar acquired the very first prototype Linkam high temperature X-Y stage for the Fluids Research Laboratory at Virginia Tech about 15 years ago and has pioneered its use in many papers in the intervening years. Used in conjunction with other techniques to homogenise samples, the current Linkam TS1400 X-Y stages provide a number of experimental advantages over other stages or test methods. The group also uses the Linkam THMS600 stages, one in conjunction with a JY Horiba Raman spectrometer. The Linkam TS1400 X-Y stage has a ceramic tube heater which completely encases the sample in a uniform temperature controlled environment enabling high accuracy control up to 1400°C within a gas sealed chamber. Samples are mounted on a sapphire
sample slide that can be moved up to 6mm in X and Y directions to better explore the sample. Fluid inclusion geologists (like the Bodnar Group) and material scientists interested in high speed quench cooling can add a special manipulator that enables rapid transfer from the heater to a much colder platform resulting in ultra-fast cooling rates of up to 240°C per second.


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