Over the past several decades, thinking about chemical processes in rocks had been dominated by experimental and theoretical treatments of mineral equilibrium, which is the state from which the time variable has been excluded. But, to an extent exceeding that of any of our sister sciences, we in geology are concerned with the behaviour of things as a function of time; thus equilibrium is but one of several interesting boundary conditions. Textures, (defined as the spatial relations within and among minerals and fluids, regardless of scale or origin) provide a means to sort out and identify successive states. In fact, it is the pattern of evolution of those states that enables us to deduce the processes. We may well draw the analogy with thermodynamics and kinetics, respectively:

equilibrium textures and phase assemblages, via thermodynamic analysis → definition of conditions of equilibration,

whereas

kinetics, as displayed in disequilibrium textures → sequence of events and processes of mineralization.

The interpretation of textures is one of the most difficult yet important aspects of the study of rocks and ores, and there are few areas of scientific endeavour that are more subject to misinterpretation. Although the difficulties are many, the opportunites for new understanding are also abundant. Textural interpretations have many facets: some are well established and accepted; some that are accepted may be wrong; others are recognised to be speculative and controversial; and we trust that still other textural features remain to be described and interpreted. This paper will deal principally with low-temperature, epigenetic ore deposits, and will emphasise silica and sphalerite; but extension to other materials is not unreasonable.

Ore and gangue minerals react internally, or with their environment, at widely ranging rates, ranging from the almost inert pyrite, arsenopyrite, well-crystallised quartz, and tourmaline to the notoriously fickle copper/iron and copper/silver sulfides. Arrested or incomplete reactions may be identifed by textural criteria and, when appropriately quantified, can provide guides to the duration of geological processes.

In recent years so much emphasis has been placed on isotopes, fluids, chemistry, and deposit and process models that the textural features have been ignored. In part this oversight occurs because we have grown accustomed to using superposition, cross-cutting, pseudomorphism, mutual intergrowths, exsolution and so on as off-the-shelf tools, to be grasped and applied without evaluation or even description. Surely science must build on previous work without constant and exhaustive reassessment, but for mineral textures a little reassessment may yield substantial benefit.

In a diffusion-controlled process of nucleation and growth, adjacent porphyroblasts compete with one another for nutrients. When the effects of this competition are evaluated quantitatively for garnet porphyroblasts in pelitic rocks from the Picuris Range of New Mexico (U.S.A.), significant correlations arise between crystal sizes and the volumes of the domains from which the crystals drew their nutrients. These correlations strengthen the conclusion drawn from earlier work on spatial dispositions, zoning patterns, and crystal size distributions that the kinetics of intergranular diffusion governed the crystallisation of these porphyroblasts.

Computer simulations indicate that competition for nutrients during diffusion-controlled growth may have small but detectable effects on crystal size frequency distributions. Diffusional competition therefore introduces relatively minor inaccuracies into attempts to extract quantitative information on crystallisation processes from size distributions using models for the growth of isolated porphyroblasts. In contrast, the effects of diffusional competition on patterns of compositional zoning may be substantial, especially for porphyroblasts in rocks for which chemical inhomogeneity of the precursor leads to strongly clustered spatial dispositions. In such rocks, clustering may alter the patterns of compositional zoning in ways that obscure evidence for diffusion-controlled growth.

To material scientists the term texture means the crystallographic orientation of grains in a polycrystal. In contrast, geologists use the term more generally to refer to the spatial arrangement or association of mineral grains in a rock. In this contribution we are concerned with the materials science definition. There are several established techniques available for the determination of crystallographic textures in rocks. It has also been realised that the scanning electron microscope (SEM) is applicable to the study of crystallographic textures via the electron channelling (EC) effect. This provides an image of mineral/rock microstructure (via orientation contrast), as well as a means of accurately indexing their crystal orientations (via electron channelling patterns, ECP). Both types of EC image result from the relationship between incident electron beam and crystal structure, and the subsequent modulation of the backscattered electron (BSE) emission signal according to Bragg's Law. It is a simple matter to switch between the two imaging modes. A related effect, electron backscattering, provides only the diffraction patterns, but has superior spatial resolution and pattern angles.

Due to crystal symmetry restrictions, there is only a limited range of ECP configurations possible for any mineral. Individual patterns can therefore be identified by comparison with the complete ‘ECP-map’. The location of an individual pattern within the map area is determined by spherical angles, the exact definition of which depends on the type of fabric diagram (e.g. inverse pole figure, pole figure or orientation distribution function). Originally, these angles were measured manually. A computer program (CHANNEL) has been developed which uses a digitisation approach to pattern recognition, derives the required fabric diagrams and also constructs ECP-maps from standard crystal data (i.e. unit cell parameters etc.).

The combination of SEM/EC and CHANNEL dramatically facilitates the study of crystal textures in minerals and rocks, making statistical crystallographic analysis from individual orientations a practicality. The following example applications are considered: (1) crystal structure representation of the Al2SiO5 polymorph system; (2) local crystal texture relationships (epitaxial nucleation) between andalusite and sillimanite grains; (3) bulk rock crystal textures of quartzites; and (4) physical properties (e.g. elastic constants and seismic velocities) determined from bulk rock texture.

Ion imaging by SIMS (ion microprobe) techniques provides a novel approach to the identification of mechanisms of fluid-mineral interaction during hydrothermal experiments. In scanning ion imaging, the primary ion beam is focussed to a fine spot which is rastered across the polished sample surface, and the secondary ion signal from the mass spectrometer is synchronised with the primary beam. The resistive anode encoder provides a direct ion image of a sample surface illuminated by a defocussed primary beam. The latter system is susceptible to charging artifacts during the imaging of insulating geological materials, and has a lower dynamic range than the scanning ion imaging system.

Application of both systems to the study of fluid–mineral interaction during hydrothermal experiments are reviewed in which fluid or solid phases have been labelled with 18O-enriched isotopic tracers. These include studies of micropermeability and microporosity in feldspars, solid-state diffusion versus solution-reprecipitation, textural equilibration mechanisms, and oxygen isotope exchange in silicate–carbonate systems.

Examples of oscillatory zoning in metamorphic minerals, imaged using a Back-Scattered Electron Detector on the SEM, are described from a series of contrasting environments. These are a prehnite vein sampled by drilling in the Mirvalles geothermal field, Costa Rica, a pyroxene vein developed in a regional metamorphic shear zone in the Yilgarn block, Western Australia, and a bedded metasomatic diopside rock from regionally metamorphosed metasediments in Connemara, Ireland. In each case the formation of oscillatory zoning can be ascribed to mineral growth under supersaturated conditions due to fluid infiltration. Oscillations can be related in the first example to periodic episodes of pressure release and boiling in the geothermal field, but in the regional metamorphic examples actualistic models are harder to define. The development of oscillatory zoning is likely to be a characteristic feature of infiltration metasomatism and can be used as a criterion in the recognition of metasomatic mineral growth in metamorphic rocks outside the vein environment.

The low-grade contact metamorphic decomposition of antigorite serpentine to olivine and talc has been studied using TEM. The reaction was more complex than has been assumed by previous workers in that (i) FeO played a significant role in controlling the temperature of reaction, and (ii) minor amounts of an aluminous phase (chlorite) were probably produced. The reaction occurred over a range of temperatures within which the assemblage antigorite + talc + olivine was stable and the antigorite became progressively more Mg-rich as the reaction proceeded. Oriented nucleation of talc occurred within the antigorite. However, the olivine breakdown product did not require nucleation; rather it appears to have grown on pre-existing olivine grains. Communication between the sites of reaction was probably facilitated by an ubiquitous grain-boundary fluid.

There is an association between the development of cleavage domes, a texture reflecting the displacement of insoluble matrix grains by porphyroblasts growing under a bulk hydrostatic stress, and textural sector-zoning. This has been found in garnet, staurolite, chiastolite, pyrite and possibly emerald porphyroblasts. Sector-zoned porphyroblasts form by lineage growth normal to the crystal faces. This causes several distinctive textures (type 1 inclusions and type 2 intergrowths, inclusion bands, growth prongs), all of which are directly or indirectly related to displacement growth. Graphite or other carbonaceous material is ubiquitous in samples showing textural sector-zoning.

A T.E.M. study of omphacites from the western Italian Alps (Sesia Lanzo Zone and Monviso eclogites) has revealed a bimodal size distribution of antiphase domains: (a) 250–350 Å, (b) ≥ 2500 Å. In addition observed dislocation substructures and ‘large-scale’ antiphase domains are intimately interconnected.

A model is presented that can explain modification of the antiphase domain sizes by the interplay of cooling/growth and dislocation glide and/or creep mechanisms. Subsequent coarsening of the modified antiphase domains is inferred to be the result of surface free-energy processes. The model clearly illustrates that only the ‘relatively undeformed’ areas containing the small-scale antiphase domains can be used for thermometric methods.

Optical microscopy of doubly polished thin sections of North Pennine sphalerite has revealed a range of previously unrecognised textures for the Alston Block mineralisation. Delicate growth zoning, interrupted by numerous solution disconformities, was seen in transmitted light. Two principal varieties of growth-banded sphalerite are recognised; the earlier (Type 1) is characterised by the development of thin opaque bands. Type 2 has colour bands between yellow and brown, correlated with iron content. In Type 1, iron levels (up to 3 wt.%) are not sufficient to account for the observed opacity. Ultra-violet and infra-red techniques failed to detect any organic inclusions. Electron microscopy revealed locally high concentrations of sub-micrometre inclusions, both beam-stable and beam-unstable, and a variety of growth-related crystal defects.

Fluid inclusion thermometry in both sphalerite varieties and the accompanying quartz gangue implies a saline mineralising fluid (20–25 wt.% equiv. NaCl) at a relatively low temperature (100° to 140°C). Tubular inclusions are conspicuous. A deformation-induced lamelliform optical anisotropy is superimposed on a growth-related grid-iron anisotropy. Growth band offset is apparent where the deformation fabric cross-cuts the growth banding. Deformation on {111} twin and slip planes was indicated by electron microscopy.

The Neves-Corvo mine opened officially in December 1988 and it is already the biggest producer of copper in the Iberian Pyrite Belt (IPB). Tin production started in 1990. The ore deposits of the IPB are related to felsic submarine volcanism which developed during the lower Tournaisian to the middle Visean. At the end of the first phase of Hercynian deformation in the middle Westphalian, the ore deposits were affected by low-pressure metamorphism producing schistosity and prehenite-pumpellyite greenschist facies assemblages in the volcanogenic sediments of the IPB.

The unique nature of the mineralogy of the Neves-Corvo deposit compared with other IPB deposits is mainly a result of the introduction of later Cu-rich hydrothermal solutions to the primitive ore pile and the presence of tin mineralisation. The cupriferous ores are rich in tetrahedrite-tennantite, stannite, kesterite, stannoidite and mawsonite.

Cassiterite occurs in Neves-Corvo: (a) as thin layers of euhedral crystals in cupriferous ores, partially replaced by chalcopyrite; (b) in the schistosity of a banded black shale chalcopyrite hanging wall formation; (c) as metre-sized lenses of massive cassiterite overlying the cupriferous ores.

The ore textures at Neves-Corvo are complex, due to intergrowths of fine colloform pyrite with the base metal minerals. Because of the low grade of metamorphism, colloform, geopetal and soft-sediment diagenetic features are preserved in the ‘complex ores’. These ‘complex ores’ have contents of 0.5% Cu, 1% Pb and 5.5% Zn. In copper-rich ores (7.9% Cu and 1.4% Zn), replacement of the primary ore by chalcopyrite has obliterated most of these textures and produced fine chalcopyrite-tetrahedrite-pyrite intergrowths. The textures clearly indicate the genesis of these ores but they impose a practical problem in recovery of the metals. There is no clear correlation between these textures and the ore classification used at the mine, but an understanding of the textures is vital since the ‘complex ores’ require fine grinding to achieve liberation and the fine grinding adversely affects the froth flotation processing of the ore.

The implications of the complex sulphide textures for ore beneficiation have been studied using reflected light microscopy, with determination of modal analyses and grain-size distributions of free particles and middlings from concentrates and tailings.

The outcome of a one-year intensive study is that the ore microscopy laboratory at the mine now produces daily information about the textures of the feed ores so that metallurgical engineers can optimise the performance of the ore dressing plant.

The western Rhodope massif contains a significant number of ‘battery grade’ Mn-oxide deposits which are best developed in the area near Kato Nevrokopi, Drama district, N. Greece. Economic Mn-oxide ore concentrations are confined to fault zones and related karsts in marbles. The mineralisation has formed by weathering of hydrothermal veins that were genetically related to Oligocene magmatism.

At Kato Nevrokopi, progressive and continuous weathering of primary, hydrothermal veins of rhodochrosite, mixed sulphide, quartz and ‘black calcite’ (calcite and todorokite) has resulted in the formation of the assemblage MnO-gel-(amorphous Mn-oxide)-todorokite-azurite-goethite-cerussite in the veins and the assemblage MnO-gel-nsutite-chalcophanite-birnessite-cryptomelane-pyrolusite and malachite and amorphous Fe-oxides in karstic cavities.

The fs2 and fO2 of the hydrothermal fluids increased with time. The breakdown of the hypogene Mn-carbonate was aided by the production of an acidic fluid due to the oxidation of sulphides. Precipitation of the supergene ores was caused by neutralisation of the fluids due to reaction with the host marble and to mixing of relatively reduced fluids with oxygenated surface water in a fluctuation water table regime. Zinc was also mobile during weathering and became concentrated in the intermediate Mn-oxides, effectively stabilising their structures. The mineral paragenesis records the progressive oxidation of the ore and the appearance of less hydrated Mn-oxides, low in alkalis and alkaline earths.

Combined structural and textural studies of the quartz veins of the Panasqueira W-Cu-Sn deposit of central Portugal have revealed the presence of coeval forms of crack-seal and cavity-fill mineral textures. The textures result from the dilational and infilling histories of brittle fractures produced within the host rock by the intrusion of pressurised fluids. Crack-seal textures were produced wherever or whenever crystal growth rates matched or were greater than fracture dilation rates, whereas cavity-fill textures developed wherever or whenever dilation rates were quicker than those of crystal growth. Rates of dilation within the blade-like fissures were naturally lowest at the edges, where types of crack-seal textures were produced, and highest in the cores, where cavity-fill texture formed. During propagation the linkage of adjacent echelon blades, by the rupture of the host-rock straps (bridges) between them, enhanced dilation rates and led to the widespread development of cavity-fill textures. Within the composite fissures so produced, environments in which types of crack-seal textures could form were restricted to the fissure margins and to areas where the tensile strain was sympathetically shared between closely spaced fissures. Textures and minerals characteristic of each fracture environment were able to form simultaneously within the fracture system.

The cathodoluminescence (CL) of cassiterite (SnO2) from the paragenetic sequence in the lodes at South Crofty Mines has been used in the interpretation of the processes which govern mineral deposition. Luminescence is controlled by the substitution of Ti, Fe and W for Sn in the cassiterite lattice. Ti and W behave as luminescence activators whereas Fe quenches luminescence. The observed colours and intensity of the luminescence are believed to result from the interplay between these effects. Successive generations of cassiterite formed during the separate stages of paragenetic evolution show different luminescence colours. These are believed to reflect changes in bulk composition of the fluid, which is indicated by the systematic variation in the composition of tourmaline in the associated gangue.

CL also reveals details of growth and deformation in individual crystals. Growth textures observed in CL are broad concentric growth banding, oscillatory zoning and sector zoning. Sector boundaries often show a zig-zag form which is indicative of competitive growth of adjacent crystal faces. Interpretation of CL textures is used to support the hypothesis that cassiterite growth took place under two main regimes. These are, firstly, conditions in which fluid pressure decreased abruptly when tectonic reactivation caused dilation of parts of the lode fracture system and secondly, conditions of sustained hydraulic pressure within fractured vein fill. In tectonically induced fractures the crystals are stubby, have non-equivalent growth faces and are commonly tetragonal bipyramidal forms in which sector zoning is invariably present. In hydraulic fractures crystals take a predominantly tetragonal prismatic form. Thus, it is believed that growth under these contrasting conditions leads to distinctive morphology and zoning in cassiterite, providing a basis for typomorphic characterisation.

Cathodoluminescence (CL) petrography of nepheline syenites of the Igaliko complex, Gardar province, South Greenland shows that sodalites possess embayed contacts against nepheline, and have formed by a process of metasomatic replacement. This texture is demonstrated clearly by CL, since sodalite luminesces bright orange and nepheline is poorly luminescent. The transformation from nepheline to sodalite results in a volume change which leads to a network of fractures in which deep-blue luminescent fluorite is precipitated. Fluorite is formed since the chlorination process involved in the transformation causes localised reductions of the salinity of the fluid and therefore a decrease in the solubility of fluorite. Sodalite-fluorite textures observed using CL allow sodalites of secondary origin in alkaline igneous rocks to be identified.

Nephelines and sodalites, when observed using scanning electron microscopy, possess small micropores. By analogy with recent work on alkali feldspars, pervasive alteration of nephelines may occur by fluid flow assisted by a permeable micropore network.

In the Brits area of the Bushveld Complex, the stratigraphically lowermost magnetitite layer of the Upper Zone is underlain by an anorthosite containing discrete, euhedral magnetite crystals, measuring 0.1–0.3 mm in diameter, which form thin layers (1 mm-1 cm thick) and laminae (commonly one grain in thickness). Discordant relationships between laminae and layers indicate a consistent younging direction upwards towards the contact with the overlying magnetitite. Our interpretation is that these crystals are cumulus and have escaped modification by postcumulus overgrowth. They also record, in places, the morphology of the floor onto which they accumulated. Their preservation is largely attributed to adcumulus growth of plagioclase before, during and after, accumulation, but may also indicate that there was only a limited supply of magnetite to the floor, thus precluding grain contact and prohibiting grain enlargement. The results of a study of compositional variations across individual plagioclase grains suggest that the presence of magnetite within the crystallising mush hindered the development of an ideal plagioclase adcumulate.

The occurrence of spheroidal, ovoid or deeply embayed plagioclase inclusions within cumulus bronzite and olivine grains of both pyroxenites and norites here implies the existence of plagioclase feldspar in melts prior to the separation of ultramafic cumulates from these melts. Variations of Sr-isotope initial ratio are shown to exist within the feldspar populations of such rocks, even on a grain-to-grain scale. Five separate stratigraphic intervals within the Lower and Critical Zones exhibit this texture, and in each case these are intervals wherein normal fractionation trends (decline in both whole-rock and orthopyroxene Mg/(Mg+Fe2+); decline in Cr contents of orthopyroxene) became reversed. The data support a model for evolution of the texture during major episodes of influx of hot, primitive magmatic liquid into the chamber. Progressive mixing of the new liquid with resident liquids (bearing feldspar on the liquidus) effected progressive changes in the composition of the hybrid liquids produced, and resorption and imposition of reversed zoning upon the inclusions.