This study of real-time deformation of mineral analogues is designed to provide further insight on the grain-scale processes that occur when rocks are deformed. The materials to be used are ammonium thiocyanate, cobalt chloride thiocyanate and ammonium chloride in a water-rich melt. Thin sections of these materials will be deformed between glass slides and observed with a petro- graphic microscope as they deform. The experiment will give information on grain boundary migration and crystallization behavior during deformation of crystals in a melt phase, and will have immediate application to studies of syntectonic plutons. The results will have wide implication for tectonic processes in orogenic belts that contain coeval plutonic rocks.
