Dr. Fred Gaidies and former Earth Sciences PhD student Dr. Freya George publish a paper in GEOLOGY about the influence of interface properties on rock microstructure formation.
Their paper challenges the long-standing hypothesis that the curvature of an interface can only influence the growth rate of nanometer-sized crystals. Instead, it suggests that interface properties can cause a growth rate divergence of nearly 50% even at the millimeter scale, impacting existing models of grain growth and size distribution and consequently, the interpretation of rock microstructure.
Gaidies F, George FR (2021) The interfacial energy penalty to crystal growth close to equilibrium. Geology 49 doi:10.1130/G48715.1
Please click Here for the link to this paper
Photo credit: Fred Gaidies