A mechanism for pyroxene-pyroxenoid and pyroxenoid-pyroxenoid transformations

A mechanism for the solid state replacement of clinopyroxene by pyroxenoids has been derived from consideration of the crystal structures. The mechanism involves the propagation of partial dislocations, with Burgers vectors of 1/4 \(2\bar 3\bar 1]\) , through the clinopyroxene matrix to generate a resultant shear; the passage of one dislocation gives rise to a single chain-repeat unit of wollastonite in each silicate chain. Pyroxenoids may thus be formed from clinopyroxene by the periodic introduction of these dislocations on parallel slip-planes, and pyroxenoid to pyroxenoid inversions may proceed by the introduction and removal of such shears by the propagation of the correct combination of partial dislocations. The Burgers vectors for these dislocations in each of the pyroxenoid mineral structures has been calculated. A two step mechanism is proposed for clinopyroxene to bustamite, and pyroxenoid to bustamite inversions, which utilises the same shear as above which generates a wollastonite structure. The second step is a shear of 1/2001] on the plane \((1\bar 10)\) of this wollastonite intermediate, to give a bustamite structure.