The simulator demonstrates how a parent rock's mineral assemblage responds to changing temperature and pressure, showing the transition through metamorphic facies fields and the sequential appearance of index minerals such as chlorite, biotite, garnet, staurolite, kyanite, and sillimanite as conditions intensify.
Drag the temperature and pressure sliders, or click directly on the pressure-temperature diagram, to place a rock at a given set of conditions. Watch which metamorphic facies field is highlighted and which index minerals appear as stable, then trace different paths, such as a subduction-style high-pressure low-temperature route versus a regional collision-style balanced heating route, to compare the resulting mineral assemblages and facies sequences.
Temperature slider, pressure slider, interactive pressure-temperature diagram with clickable facies fields, protolith selector (such as shale or basalt), and a display panel showing the resulting stable mineral assemblage and active isograds.
Did you know that the mineral kyanite and the mineral sillimanite are made of exactly the same atoms, aluminum, silicon, and oxygen, arranged into different crystal structures? Finding one instead of the other in a rock tells geologists precisely which side of a specific pressure-temperature boundary that rock experienced deep in the crust.
The simulator demonstrates how a parent rock's mineral assemblage responds to changing temperature and pressure, showing the transition through metamorphic facies fields and the sequential appearance of index minerals such as chlorite, biotite, garnet, staurolite, kyanite, and sillimanite as conditions intensify.
The simulator demonstrates how a parent rock's mineral assemblage responds to changing temperature and pressure, showing the transition through metamorphic facies fields and the sequential appearance of index minerals such as chlorite, biotite, garnet, staurolite, kyanite, and sillimanite as conditions intensify.
Drag the temperature and pressure sliders, or click directly on the pressure-temperature diagram, to place a rock at a given set of conditions. Watch which metamorphic facies field is highlighted and which index minerals appear as stable, then trace different paths, such as a subduction-style high-pressure low-temperature route versus a regional collision-style balanced heating route, to compare the resulting mineral assemblages and facies sequences.
Did you know that the mineral kyanite and the mineral sillimanite are made of exactly the same atoms, aluminum, silicon, and oxygen, arranged into different crystal structures? Finding one instead of the other in a rock tells geologists precisely which side of a specific pressure-temperature boundary that rock experienced deep in the crust.