Pressure solution

Pressure solution is dissolution at stressed grain contacts, followed by transport of dissolved material and its reprecipitation in lower-stress regions. It deforms rocks and can compact sedimentary layers over time.

Contact dissolution: Dissolution of minerals where stressed grains touch one another. It initiates pressure solution at concentrated grain contacts.
Effective stress: The stress carried by a porous solid framework after pore-fluid pressure is accounted for. It determines how strongly grains press against one another.
Stylolitization: The formation and development of stylolites through pressure dissolution. It is the structural expression of prolonged pressure solution in many rocks.
Dislocation creep: Crystal deformation by movement of dislocations through a mineral lattice. It deforms crystals internally, unlike pressure solution's dissolution and mass transfer.
Diffusion creep: Solid deformation driven by the movement of atoms or vacancies through a crystal or along its boundaries. It describes deformation when dissolved material diffuses away from stressed contacts.
Pore fluid: Fluid occupying the spaces and fractures within a porous rock or sediment. It provides the medium through which dissolved material is transported.
Chemical compaction: Reduction of sediment volume through dissolution and mass transfer during burial. Pressure solution can compact sediment without requiring grains to fracture.
Grain-boundary sliding: Deformation in which adjacent grains move past one another along their boundaries. It can accommodate strain without the contact dissolution that defines pressure solution.
Intergranular pressure solution: Pressure solution in which solute moves through fluid along grain boundaries. This is a common transport pathway between dissolving contacts and precipitation sites.
Chemical potential: A thermodynamic quantity that measures how a system's free energy changes when matter is added. Stress alters mineral chemical potential and drives dissolution at contacts.

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