Rheology of synthetic anorthite-diopside aggregates: Implications for ductile shear zones

We investigated the high‐temperature creep strength of fine‐grained anorthite‐diopside rocks at temperatures ranging from 1323 K to 1523 K and at 300 MPa confining pressure in a Paterson‐type gas‐medium deformation apparatus. Flow stress varied between 20 and 450 MPa resulting in strain rates between 6.1 × 10−7 s−1 and 7.5 × 10−4 s−1. Pure diopside and anorthite samples were hot pressed from crushed natural single crystals and glass powders, respectively. Two‐phase samples were produced by hot isostatic pressing of mechanically mixed powders of anorthite glass with 25, 50 and 75 vol % diopside particles. Arithmetic mean grain size of the anorthite matrix is dAn ≈ 3.5 μm. Three different ranges of diopside particle size were used: dDi < 25 μm,