Articles | Volume 16, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-16-877-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-16-877-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
29 Sep 2025
Research article |
| 29 Sep 2025
| 29 Sep 2025
On unifying carbonate rheology
James Gilgannon
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
Marco Herwegh
Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
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Short summary
Carbonates can control how strong the Earth's crust is in places. They are often described in simple terms as calcite or dolomite, but they are more complicated. At the atomistic level different amounts of elements, like magnesium and calcium, are incorporated at different temperatures and at the microscopic level carbonates can have different internal structures which leads to differences in strength. We review 50 years of experimental data to provide new equations that describe this strength.
Carbonates can control how strong the Earth's crust is in places. They are often described in...
