Universiẗat, Diss., 1992--Kiel.

Inaug.-diss.--Leipzig. / Cover title. Lebenslauf.

München, Univ., Diss., 2006.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2004--Münster (Westfalen).

Magmatic processes are major agents responsible for the formation and differentiation of the Earth's crust. In contrast to extensive efforts to improve understanding and utility of igneous geochemistry, physical processes of magma differentiation and solidification remain largely unclear. Large variability of igneous textures provides record of these processes and intensive parameters governing the crystallization. In this thesis, we develop quantitative methods, which allow us to better interpret igneous textures in the framework of physics of solidification. We have developed a new three-dimensional model of crystallization from one- component melt driven by homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation and crystal growth. The predicted textures are quantitatively characterized by crystal size distributions, spatial distribution functions and parameters representing grain contact relationships. The model employs high resolution in a large volume simulation domain in order to produce statistically stable results. Our simulations, performed for various functional forms of nucleation and growth rates with respect to time, imply that (i) crystals are ordered (anti-clustered) on short length scales. This reflects that other crystals already have a finite size at the time of nucleation of younger crystal,...