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© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Kakihata, Y., Michibayashi, K., & Dick, H. Heterogeneity in texture and crystal fabric of intensely hydrated ultramylonitic peridotites along a transform fault, Southwest Indian Ridge. Tectonophysics, 823, (2022): 229206, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2021.229206., Microstructures and olivine crystal fabrics were studied in amphibole-bearing peridotite samples obtained from the Marion Fracture Zone of the Southwest Indian Ridge by dredge D19 of the 1984 PROTEA Expedition Leg 5 cruise of the RV Melville. The peridotites show various textures ranging from extremely fine-grained well-layered ultramylonites to heterogeneously strained tectonites. Electron back-scatter diffraction analyses revealed that olivine crystal-preferred orientations (CPOs), which are developed primarily in coarse granular peridotites in the mantle, become weaker with an increasing degree of grain-size reduction from coarser to finer grains, for both porphyroclastic and matrix olivine grains. However, two well-layered ultramylonites are characterized by bimodal CPOs of (010)[001] (B type) and (001)[100] (E type) or a strong maximum of [010] normal to the foliation and girdle patterns of both [100] and [001] on the foliation plane (i.e., an axial [010] pattern or AG type). Moreover, spinel grains within these well-layered ultramylonites have not only been broken down to form olivine and amphibole by hydrous reactions, but have also been fractured and their fragments pulled apart in the fine-grained matrix. These features indicate that shear deformation occurred as increasing stress under hydrous conditions during the final stage of deformation, which enabled the local occurrence of low-temperature plastic deformation, resulting in the development of a CPO and a foliation within the ultramylonites., This study was supported by research grants awarded to K.M. by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Kiban-A 22244062, Kiban-S 16H06347). H.J.B.D. was supported by the US National Science Foundation (NSF/MG&G) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Microstructures and olivine crystal fabrics were studied in amphibole-bearing peridotite samples obtained from the Marion Fracture Zone of the Southwest Indian Ridge by dredge D19 of the 1984 PROTEA Expedition Leg 5 cruise of the RV Melville. The peridotites show various textures ranging from extremely fine-grained well-layered ultramylonites to heterogeneously strained tectonites. Electron back-scatter diffraction analyses revealed that olivine crystal-preferred orientations (CPOs), which are developed primarily in coarse granular peridotites in the mantle, become weaker with an increasing degree of grain-size reduction from coarser to finer grains, for both porphyroclastic and matrix olivine grains. However, two well-layered ultramylonites are characterized by bimodal CPOs of (010)[001] (B type) and (001)[100] (E type) or a strong maximum of [010] normal to the foliation and girdle patterns of both [100] and [001] on the foliation plane (i.e., an axial [010] pattern or AG type). Moreover, spinel grains within these well-layered ultramylonites have not only been broken down to form olivine and amphibole by hydrous reactions, but have also been fractured and their fragments pulled apart in the fine-grained matrix. These features indicate that shear deformation occurred as increasing stress under hydrous conditions during the final stage of deformation, which enabled the local occurrence of low-temperature plastic deformation, resulting in the development of a CPO and a foliation within the ultramylonites.

Crystallographic preferred orientations (CPOs) of olivine within natural peridotites are commonly depicted by pole figures for the [100], [010], and [001] axes, and they can be categorized into five well-known fabric types: A, B, C, D, and E. These fabric types can be related to olivine slip systems: A with (010)[100], B with (010)[001], C with (001)[001], D with {0k1}[100], and E with (001)[100]. In addition, an AG type is commonly found in nature, but its origin is controversial, and could involve several contributing factors such as complex slip systems, non-coaxial strain types, or the effects of melt during plastic flow. In this paper we present all of our olivine fabric database published previously as well as new data mostly from ocean floor, mainly for the convergent margin of the western Pacific region, and we introduce a new index named Fabric-Index Angle (FIA), which is related to the P-wave property of a single olivine crystal. The FIA can be used as an alternative to classifying the CPOs into the six fabric types, and it allows a set of CPOs to be expressed as a single angle in a range between -90 degrees and 180 degrees. The six olivine fabric types have unique values of FIA: 63 degrees for A type, -28 degrees for B type, 158 degrees for C type, 90 degrees for D type, 106 degrees for E type, and 0 degrees for AG type. We divided our olivine database into five tectonic groups: ophiolites, ridge peridotites, trench peridotites, peridotite xenoliths, and peridotites enclosed in high-pressure metamorphic rocks. Our results show that although our database is not yet large enough (except for trench peridotites) to define the characteristics of the five tectonic groups, the natural olivine fabrics vary in their range of FIA: 0 degrees to 150 degrees for the ophiolites, 40 degrees to 80 degrees for the ridge peridotites, -40 degrees to 100 degrees for the trench peridotites, 0 degrees to 100 degrees for the peridotite xenoliths, and 40 degrees to 10