Subgrain boundaries in quartz theoretical analysis and microscopic observations

At moderate temperature (T≈1/3 T _Melt) recovery processes become very active in wet quartz and many subgrain boundaries (sgb's) are formed which still contain interesting information on the deformation mechanisms. In particular, the geometrical characteristics of a sgb (normal, rotation axis) depend upon the glide systems which have been activated. Possible sgb's in quartz are studied from a theoretical point of view with the help of the Frank formula. The predictions are compared with observations by optical microscopy and by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) on naturally deformed quartz samples. Most of the predicted sgb's are effectively observed and there is an excellent agreement between theory and observation. This allows a rapid characterization of sgb's in tem to be performed by standard stereographic methods: only the directions of the dislocations and the plane of the sgb are determined; they are compared to a table deduced from geometrical considerations and the glide systems which have been activated during the deformation (at least the last stage of deformation) can be deduced. This method is very important for the case of quartz because the rapid irradiation of this material under the electron beam renders very difficult the characterization of the Burgers vectors of free dislocations. A similar method can be developed for observations in optical microscopy when the crystallographic orientation of the studied thin sections can be determined.