Determination of thermal conductivity of natural silicate melts

Cooling of natural silicate melts and energy transfer to the environment are controlled by the temperature-dependent thermal conductivity. We describe a method that allows a correlation between temperature-dependent strain rate and a bulk temperature during a cooling or heating process under quasisteady state conditions in a Newtonian flow regime. A rotational viscometer measured data for experimental cooling curves of remelted volcanic rock materials. From these data we can calculate the thermal conductivity of an unknown melt after we calibrate the setup with a melt of known thermal conductivity as a by-product of viscosimetry.