Stress relaxation experiments of olivine under conditions of subducted slab in Earth's deep upper mantle

Stress relaxation experiments of olivine were conducted under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions up to 10 GPa and 1273 K using a Kawai-type multi-anvil apparatus. A pre-sintered San Carlos olivine sample rod was inserted between two dense Al2O3 pistons to yield high stress at high-pressure within an octahedral pressure medium. Stress was determined from the two-dimensional diffraction pattern taken using monochromatic X-rays and an imaging-plate, and sample length was determined from an X-ray radiograph. In these experiments, pressure was first increased at room temperature, and then the temperature was increased and kept at 673, 873, 1073, and 1273 K. Four relaxation cycles, in total, were carried out in two experimental runs. The magnitude of deviatoric stress was calculated from five diffraction peaks with the following hkls: 0 2 1, 1 0 1, 1 3 0, 1 3 1, and 1 1 2. The calculated deviatoric stress was significantly different depending on which diffraction peak was used (up to a factor of ∼2) due to plastic deformation within the polycrystalline sample. The deviatoric stress decreased with increasing temperature in all of relaxation cycles. At given temperatures, the final-state value of deviatoric stress increased with increasing pressure. The upper bound for the plastic strain rate in the final-state was determined to be 10−7 s−1 based on a comparison between the total sample length determined from the radiograph and the d-spacings along the piston direction determined from X-ray diffraction. Present results suggest a positive activation volume for the low-temperature rheology of olivine.