Experimental Measurements of Reaction Rate at the Phase Change of Nickel Olivine to Nickel Spinel

One of hypotheses for deep earthquake generation is a phase change hypothesis. In order to examine this possibility, we studied the reaction rate for the phase change from nickel olivine (Ni2SiO4) to nickel spinel (Ni2SiO4) under high pressure and high temperature by the use of tetrahedral press. The reaction rate is expressed by the equation: dX/dt=K(1-X)P, where K is the rate constants, X is the amount of product, t is time and p is the order of reaction. The rate constant K is given by the equation: K=K0(KT/h) exp (-ΔAE/kt)sinh(αΔP/KT), where K0 is a constant, T is the absolute temperature, k is the Boltzman constant, h is Plank's constant, ΔE is the activation energy, ΔP is the deviation of pressure from the eqgilibrium state and α is a constant. If (αΔP/kT)