Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) is a modern high-precision method for studying the microstructural features of a wide range of crystalline materials. This paper examines EBSD application for natural ultramafic rocks including surface preparation, analysis, and post-processing in HKL Channel and MTEX software. The EBSD data are compared with those measured using classical microstructural study of transparent minerals on a universal Fedorov stage. The main EBSD advantages include high localization and rapid data acquisition, automation, objectivity, and a wide range of the studied materials. The main challenges are related to strict requirements for sample surface quality and necessary study of large areas to obtain representative information because of the large grain size of rock. Using fresh Uralian-Alaska-type dunites as example, we showed the EBSD possibilities including the analysis of preferred crystallographic orientation of olivine, identification of active slip systems, assessment of intragranular misorientation, and determination of sizes of subgrains and recrystallized grains (neoblasts). It is shown that modern tools for obtaining and processing EBSD data enable an objective assessment of relative contributions of plastic deformation and recrystallization to rock formation and estimation of a plastic flow regime of geomaterials in the lithosphere.
Keywords: EBSD, plastic deformation, recrystallization, lattice preferred orientation, porphyroclast, neoblast, ultramafic rock, olivine, chromite.
Funding. This work was supported by state contracts nos. FMRS-2025-0014 (Institute of Geology, Ufa Federal Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa, Russia) and 124032000029-9 (St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia).
Acknowledgements. The authors are grateful to reviewer V.V. Shilovskikh and editors of the journal, whose valuable comments allowed significant improvement of the manuscript. The authors are also grateful to I.I. Musabirov for assistance with EBSD studies at the Center for Collective Use “Structural and Physicomechanical Studies of Materials” of the Institute for Superplasticity Problems of Metals, Russian Academy of Sciences (Ufa, Russia) and to M.S. Lozhkin (Research Center “Nanoengineering of Photoactive Materials” of the St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia) for sample etching.
Conflict of interest. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Author contribution. D.E. Saveliev, N.S. Vlasenko – concept development, research, writing the manuscript.
For citation: Saveliev D.E., Vlasenko N.S. Application of electron backscattered diffraction to solving petrological problems on example of ultramafic rocks. Mineralogiya, 1 2026, 2(2), 36–51. https://doi.org/10.35597/2313-545X-2026-12-2-4

Received 03.02.2026, revised 28.05.2026, accepted 10.06.2026

Dmitry E. Saveliev – Doct. Sci. (Geol.-Mineral.), Key Researcher, Institute of Geology UFRC RAS, Ufa, Russia; savl71@mail.ru
Natalya S. Vlasenko – Engineer, RC Geomodel, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia;
ly17@mail.ru

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