Artificial Acoustic Shock Wave–Induced Orientational Disordering in Calcite Single Crystal—Implications on Compression Timescale‐Dependent Transitions

The structural evolution of minerals present on Earth and other planetary bodies is drastically impacted by asteroid impacts, which have to be systematically investigated. To comprehend such impact processes and their implications, laboratory‐scale static and dynamic experiments are required. In this work, we present the impact of acoustic shock waves on a single crystal of calcite for the plane (104) against 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 shock pulses at the transient temperature as well as the pressure of 864 K and 2.0 MPa using a one‐dimensional tabletop shock tube. Interestingly, a significant orientational disordering occurred at the 4th‐shocked condition, which can be substantiated by the absence of some minor diffraction lines such as (2–10), (113), and (211), and a significant reduction is observed in the lattice Raman modes intensities. To validate the observed results, the intensity of lattice modes from the experiments is compared with those reported in previous nanosecond flyer‐impact shock‐compression (hereafter, FPSC) studies (Bell et al. Meteorit. Planet Sci 2016). From the measured experimental results, it was found that, compared to the FPSC, acoustic shock waves induce a larger degree of orientational disordering in the CO 3 units and structural defects. Based on the overall results, we believe that acoustic shock waves can be one of the alternative tools for several known static and dynamic compression techniques to understand minerals' phase transitions and their implications on the Earth and other exoplanets in compression timescale aspects.