Creep is the mechanism you refer to. Yes absolutely scientists can replicate creep in the lab. You too can at home by leaving butter on the counter and watching it bend under its own weight at room temperature after a few days.
At about 1/2 or 2/3 of the melting temp and above, materials start to behave kind of funny.
The glass transition temperature of quartz is 1200°C, and according to the charts I could find, is outside crust and upper mantle temperature ranges. (That is just based on averages, I believe. Heat from friction may be in a different category.)
Edit: The melting temperature is ~1700°C. It probably starts to get malleable around 1200°C. I was confused about the term “glass transition” due to some of my hobbies and likely does not apply.
Other silicon-type rocks (like gypsum; opposed to quartz) have wildly different glass transition temperatures in the 200°C range. That seems feasible to bend in a lab and could be in-scope.
Hmm. I’m going to have to look up how you model glass bending, if that’s how it works. I wonder if you could do this in a garage setting, even. I’m not surprised a calcium mineral is less resistant to it, they seen less hardcore in general or something.
Glass is a weird one since it’s an amorphous solid.
Excuse, me though. I might be mixing up my definition of “glass transition”. It’s a term used for plastics (and other amorphous solids) when they start to becomes malleable.
In the above case, I think I tried to apply it to quartz which is incorrect. The temperature ranges are still in the ball park of my intent.