The effect of dynamic recrystallization on olivine crystal preferred orientations in mantle xenoliths deformed under varied stress conditions

Spinel peridotite xenoliths from Persani Mountains, Southeastern Carpathians, Romania, were submitted to deformation by dislocation creep accompanied by dynamic recrystallization under variable stress and temperature conditions. Predominance of low-angle boundaries parallel to (100) with well-defined [Ovw] rotation axes in olivine indicates that subgrain rotation is the main recrystallization mechanism and that dislocation glide occurs mainly in [100]{0k1} systems. Analysis of olivine crystal preferred orientations highlights that recrystallization results in dispersion of the orientations of recrystallized grains relatively to the parent grains. This dispersion may be quantified by a dimension-less dispersion factor defined as the ratio of the random component of the [100] axis distributions between the recrystallized grains and porphyroclasts. This factor is largely independent from the overall fabric strength, the number of grains analyzed, and the recrystallized grain size. The olivine CPO strength and anisotropy at the rock scale, quantified by J-index, are largely controlled by the volume of recrystallized grains, which depends on finite strain. Comparison of olivine CPO in coarse- and fine-grained porphyroclastic peridotites shows that deviatoric stress and temperature conditions play nevertheless a role on the CPO evolution during recrystallization; selective grain growth, which is favored at high temperature and low stresses, does counteract the dispersion produced by the nucleation processes. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.