Experiments on flow focusing in soluble porous media, with applications to melt extraction from the mantle
Authors: Kelemen Peter B. , Whitehead J. A. , Aharonov Einat , Jordahl Kelsey A. 
Published: February 2004

We demonstrate finite structures formed as a consequence of the “reactive infiltration instability” (Chadam et al., 1986) in a series of laboratory and numerical experiments with growth of solution channels parallel to the fluid flow direction. Regions with initially high porosity have high ratios of fluid volume to soluble solid surface area and exhibit more rapid fluid flow at constant pressure, so that dissolution reactions in these regions produce a relatively rapid increase in porosity. As channels grow, large ones entrain flow laterally inward and extend rapidly. As a result, small channels are starved and disappear. The growth of large channels is an exponential function of time, as predicted by linear stability analysis for growth of infinitesimal perturbations in porosity. Our experiments demonstrate channel growth in the presence of an initial solution front and without an initial solution front where there is a gradient in the solubility of the solid matrix. In the gradient case, diffuse flow is unstable everywhere, channels can form and grow at any point, and channels may extend over the length scale of the gradient. As a consequence of the gradient results, we suggest that the reactive infiltration instability is important in the Earth's mantle, where partial melts in the mantle ascend adiabatically. Mantle peridotite becomes increasingly soluble as the melts decompress. Dissolution reactions between melts and peridotite will produce an increase in liquid mass and lead to formation of porous channels composed of dunite (>95% olivine). Replacive dunite is commonly observed in the mantle section of ophiolites. Focused flow of poly baric partial melts of ascending peridotite within dunite channels may explain the observed chemical disequilibrium between shallow, oceanic mantle peridotites and mid‐oceanic ridge basalts (MORB). This hypothesis represents an important alternative to MORB extraction in fractures, since fractures may not form in weak, viscously deforming asthenospheric mantle. We also briefly consider the effects of crystallization, rather than dissolution reactions, on the morphology of porous flow via a second set of experiments where fluid becomes supersaturated in a solid phase. Formation of short‐lived conduits parallel to the flow direction occurs rapidly, and then each conduit is eventually choked by interior crystallization; fluid flow then passes through the most permeable portion of the walls to form a new conduit. On long time scales and length scales, transient formation and destruction of conduits will result in random and diffuse flow. Where liquid cools as it rises through mantle tectosphere on a conductive geotherm, it will become saturated in pyroxene as well as olivine and decrease in mass. This process may produce a series of walled conduits, as in our experiments. Development of a low‐porosity cap overlying high porosity conduits may create hydrostatic overpressure sufficient to cause fracture and magma transport to the surface in dikes.