We investigated static recovery of dislocations in calcite by annealing a deformed single crystal at 873--1073 K in a CO2 atmosphere (pCO2=0.1 MPa) for different times. The sample used for the annealing experiments was shortened ~5% parallel to <404¿1> at 873 K and at a strain rate of ~10-5 s-1. Slip occurred primarily on f-⟨101¿1⟩ and c-⟨2¿110⟩ with minor contributions from a-⟨12¿10⟩. Intensively jogged dislocations and sinusoidal, curved dislocations with short wavelengths of ~0.15 μm are common in both the as-deformed sample and the annealed samples. There is no observable decrease in the average apparent diameter (~0.1 μm) of dislocation loops in the annealed samples. The activation energy for dislocation recovery is 184¿22 kJ mol-1. The recovery kinetics and dislocation substructures suggest that dislocation recovery may be rate controlled by dislocation climb, which is, in turn, controlled by vacancy core diffusion. The dimensions of the bowed-out dislocation segments and prismatic loops suggest that the source-sink distance for vacancies along dislocation lines is smaller than the mean free path of core vacancies and may allow core diffusion to be dominant.¿ 1997 American Geophysical Union