An experimental investigation of the role of microfracture surfaces in controlling quartz precipitation rate: Applications to fault zone diagenesis

We present the results of quartz growth experiments, which were designed to assess the role of microfracture surfaces in controlling quartz-precipitation rates during fault-zone diagenesis. Experiments were run in hydrothermal cold-seal vessels at 300-450 °C and 150 MPa confining pressure for up to 1344 h. Microfractures routinely form at grain contacts during these experiments. Microfracture kinematic-aperture distributions indicate that microfractures form within the first 48 h of each experiment. Regardless of experimental temperature or duration, microfracture-sealing cements account for approximately the same amount of new quartz cement in each experiment. With increasing experimental duration, sealed microfractures were progressively overgrown by grain-boundary overgrowth cements. Spatial and temporal trends in the distribution of overgrowth- and microfracture-sealing cements indicate that precipitation rates on newly formed microfractures greatly exceed those on detrital-grain boundaries. This effect persists regardless of natural iron-oxide grain coatings present in a subset of our experiments. While our results agree with previous research that demonstrated increased growth rates on fracture surfaces in faults in fully lithified rock, fundamental differences in the nature of deformation in our experiments provide insight into quartz cementation in cataclastic deformation bands in faults offsetting high-porosity sandstones.