An Application of High Pressure in Geophysics: Experimental Rock Deformation

Abstract

For proved laboratory methods through which to study phenomena within the earth’s crust the geophysicist often turns to the engineer and physicist who have largely developed the high-pressure art. The paper reports on the geophysical problem of rock deformation in which there is an application of high pressure and with which the reader may not be familiar. Of the four important environmental factors involved in natural rock deformation, namely, pressure, temperature, time, and the presence of solutions, only pressure and time have received much attention in the laboratory. Descriptions of current research by Griggs and his collaborators at the Institute of Geophysics, University of California, and by the Shell Research Laboratory show what is being done to determine the combined effects of these factors in an effort to simulate geological conditions more realistically.