QUT researchers have used experimental x-ray techniques at the Australian Synchrotron to gain fundamental insights into how gypsum dehydrates under pressure and the processes that create earthquakes.

In the study published in the Nature Research journal Communications Materials, QUT researchers Dr Christoph Schrank, Dr Oliver Gaede, from the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Master of Science graduate Katherine Gioseffi teamed up with the Australian Synchrotron and colleagues from the University of New South Wales and the University of Warsaw to study how gypsum dehydrates much faster under pressure.

«Dehydration is a process in which minerals shed the water bound in their crystal lattices due to heating,» Dr Schrank said.

«The rocky shell of our planet, the lithosphere, contains many rocks rich in hydrous minerals. The water produced by dehydration of the lithosphere has a tremendous impact on geological processes such as the formation of volcanoes, ore deposits, and earthquakes.»

In the study, the researchers used a unique high-pressure cell with synchrotron transmission X-ray scattering which employs extremely bright X-rays to reveal how rock samples transform under high temperatures and pressures at the scale of nanometres (one billionth of a metre).

The ANSTO Australian Synchrotron, in Melbourne, is located in a building the size of a football stadium and is able to use electrons to produce intense beams of light more than a million times brighter than the sun.

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