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Compaction experiments on wet calcite powder at room temperature: evidence for operation of intergranular pressure solution

Abstract Dead weight uniaxial compaction creep experiments were carried out on fine-grained, super-pure calcite (<74 μm) at room temperature and applied effective stresses of 1–4 MPa. All samples were pre-compacted dry at a stress of 8 MPa, for 30 minutes, to obtain a well-controlled initial porosity. The samples were then wet-compacted under ‘drained’ conditions with pre-saturated solution as pore fluid. Control experiments, which were done either dry or with chemically inert pore fluid, showed negligible compaction. However, samples tested with saturated solution as pore fluid showed easily measurable compaction creep. The compaction strain rate decreased with increasing strain and increasing grain size, and increased with increasing applied stress. Addition of Mg2+ ions to the saturated solution dramatically inhibited compaction. From the literature, Mg2+ ions are known to inhibit calcite precipitation. By comparison with a theoretical model for intergranular pressure solution in calcite, the observed mechanical behaviour and the way that compaction responded to the pore fluid chemistry suggest that, under our experimental condition, intergranular pressure solution is the mechanism of the deformation and that precipitation is likely to be the rate-limiting step.