Magnetic behaviors of cataclasites within Wenchuan earthquake fault zone in heating experiments

Previous rock magnetism of fault rocks were used to trace the frictional heating temperature, however, few studies are focus on different temperatures effect of rock magnetic properties. To investigate rock magnetic response to different temperature, we conducted heating experiments on cataclasites from the Wenchuan earthquake Fault Scientific Drilling borehole 2 (WFSD-2) cores. Samples of cataclasites were obtained using an electric drill with a 1 cm-diameter drill pipe from 580.65 m-depth. Experiments were performed by a Thermal-optical measurement system under argon atmosphere and elevated temperatures. Both microstructural observations and powder X-ray diffraction analyses show that feldspar and quartz start to melt at 1100 ° and 1300 ° respectively. Magnetic susceptibility values of samples after heating are higher than that before heating. Samples after heating at 700 and 1750 ° have the highest values of magnetic susceptibility. Rock magnetic measurements show that the main ferromagnetic minerals within samples heated below 1100 ° (400, 700, 900 and 1100 °) are magnetite, which is new-formed by transformation of paramagnetic minerals. The χferri results show that the quantity of magnetite is bigger at sample heated by 700° experiment than by 400, 900 and 1100° experiments. Based on the FORC diagrams, we consider that magnetite grains are getting finer from 400 to 900°, and growing coarser when heated from 900 to 1100 °. SEM-EDX results indicate that the pure iron are formed in higher temperature (1300, 1500 and 1750 °), which present as framboids with size <10 μm. Rock magnetic measurements imply pure iron is the main ferromagnetic materials in these heated samples. The amount and size of iron framboids increase with increasing temperature. Therefore, we conclude that the paramagnetic minerals are decomposed into fine magnetite, then to coarse-grained magnetite, finally to pure iron at super high temperature. New-formed magnetite contributes to the higher magnetic susceptibility values of samples when heated at 400, 700, 900 and 1100°, while the neoformed pure iron is responsible to the higher magnetic susceptibility values of samples when heated at 1300, 1500 and 1750°.