The rheological behaviour of fracture-filling cherts: example of Barite Valley dikes, Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa

Ledevin, M.; Arndt, N.; Davaille, A.; Ledevin, R.; Simionovici, A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/se-6-253-2015

Articles | Volume 6, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-6-253-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-6-253-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 6, issue 1

Research article

|

20 Feb 2015

Research article |

| 20 Feb 2015

The rheological behaviour of fracture-filling cherts: example of Barite Valley dikes, Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa

M. Ledevin, N. Arndt, A. Davaille, R. Ledevin, and A. Simionovici

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Final revised paper (published on 20 Feb 2015)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 13 May 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C479: 'referee comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 May 2014
- AC C507: 'Reply to Anonymous Referee #1', Morgane Ledevin, 28 May 2014
RC C577: 'review', Axel Hofmann, 14 Jun 2014
- AC C687: 'Reply to reviewer #2', Morgane Ledevin, 17 Jul 2014

Short summary

We investigate the composition, physical and rheological properties of fluids at the origin of Palaeoarchean chert dikes in South Africa. The dikes formed by repetitive hydraulic fracturing as overpressured oceanic fluids were released at low temperatures as a siliceous slurry. The gelation capacity of silica conferred the chert precursor a viscoelastic, probably thixotrope behaviour. It is an additional step to understand fluid circulations towards the ocean floor, the habitat of early life.