Diffusion in Minerals: An Overview of Published Experimental Diffusion Data

Although geologists have been thinking and writing about diffusion in minerals, magmas, and rocks since early in the 20th century (e.g., Penrose 1914; Van Orstrand 1915; Bowen 1921; Eskola 1934; Duffell 1937; Reynolds 1947; Garrels 1949), very few experimental measurements of diffusion in minerals by geologists were published until the 1960’s. The development of commercial electron microprobes in the late 1960’s made it possible to measure compositional zoning in minerals on a micron scale, which provided both the motivation for and a means of determining diffusion coefficients. This led to a significant increase in the rate of publication of papers on diffusion in minerals during the 1970’s (see Fig. 1). Other technological advances (e.g., secondary ion mass spectrometry) have further increased interest in diffusion data, leading to a continued growth of published diffusion coefficients and to the application of a host of experimental designs and measurement techniques (e.g., vapor deposition, Rutherford backscattering, nuclear reactions) that have expanded the range of measurable diffusivities (see Watson and Baxter 2007, Fig. 5; Watson and Dohmen 2010; Cherniak et al. 2010).