On equilibrium in non-hydrostatic metamorphic systems

Metamorphic geology has accumulated a huge body of observation on mineral assemblages that reveal strong patterns in occurrence, summarised for example in the idea of metamorphic facies. On the realisation that such patterns needed a simple explanation, there has been considerable a posteriori success from adopting the idea that equilibrium thermodynamics can be used on mineral assemblages to make sense of the patterns in terms of, for example, the pressure and temperature of formation of mineral assemblages. In doing so, a particularly simple implicit assumption is made, that mineral assemblages operate essentially hydrostatically. Structural geologists have studied the same rocks for diff…