A new method has been developed to measure thermal conductivity of monomineralic aggregate at ordinary temperature and pressure, in which the needle‐probe technique is applied to a mixture of powdered specimen and distilled water. By use of this method, thermal conductivity of 166 rock‐forming minerals has been determined. The results are discussed in relation to the density, crystal structure, and chemical composition of the minerals. The major conclusions are: (1) for most of the minerals, thermal conductivity is a linear function of density for constant mean atomic weight; (2) the conductivity of silicates is controlled by the structure of the silicon‐oxygen network and is lower for the more complicated networks; (3) in an isomorphous series (garnets, pyroxenes, amphiboles, and carbonates), the thermal conductivity decreases as the mean atomic weight, or the mass of metallic ions, increases; (4) in a series that forms a binary solid solution (olivine, pyroxene, and plagioclase), the conductivity has a minimum at an intermediate composition; (5) the thermal conductivity of silicates is related linearly to elastic‐wave velocities.
Using a new temperature recording instrument recently developed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, downhole temperature measurements were made at five sites during Deep Sea Drilling Project Leg 86. The instrument, which can be installed in the shoe of the hydraulic piston corer, allows measurements of sediment temperature to be made simultaneously with the collection of sediment cores. A numerical procedure was applied to correct the temperature disturbance caused by the corer's friction with the sediment. Detailed temperature profiles constructed from the data were combined with the measurement of thermal conductivity to calculate heat flow. Heat flow values were generally low at all sites of Leg 86, consistent with the age of the lithosphere (> 100 m.y.) in the Northwestern Pacific Basin.
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