Self-lubricated mantle convection: Two-dimensional models

Details Self-lubricated mantle convection: Two-dimensional models Self-lubricated mantle convection: Two-dimensional models

Aug 1994

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994georl..21.1707l&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters (ISSN 0094-8276), vol. 21, no. 16, p. 1707-1710

Physics

16

Convection, Earth Mantle, Plates (Tectonics), Self Lubrication, Tectonics, Two Dimensional Models, Boussinesq Approximation, Mathematical Models, Viscosity

Scientific paper

We present results from convection models allowing for self-lubrication of downflows. Models impose a line source of chemically light, low viscosity material at the top of a convecting layer of temperature-dependent viscosity material. Low viscosity surface material serves as an analog to hydrated sediment/crust and the high viscosity upper portion of the convecting layer as an analog to mantle lithosphere. Slow near surface motion in the convecting layer entrains low viscosity material into zones of downflow, which has a lubricating effect. Once entrained lubricant is deeper than the cold high viscosity portion of the convecting layer, rapid upper boundary layer overturn occurs and system properties change (e.g., heat flux doubles). This marks transition to a lubricated state. Before and after transition, transport properties are dominantly determined by, respectively, the viscosity of mantle lithosphere and that of interior mantle. Lubricated and nonlubricated states appear as distinct regions in system output space suggesting that exchange between them is akin to a phase transition. That such exchange depends on a near surface lubricant implies that the geodynamics of planets lacking such lubricants may fundamentally differ from that of planets possessing them.

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