Melt extraction from the mantle beneath spreading centers

Details Melt extraction from the mantle beneath spreading centers Melt extraction from the mantle beneath spreading centers

Aug 1991

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991e%26psl.105..368s&link_type=abstract

Earth and Planetary Science Letters (ISSN 0012-821X), vol. 105, no. 4, Aug. 1991, p. 368-377.

Physics

80

Earth Mantle, Geophysical Fluids, Two Dimensional Models, Viscous Flow, Earth Crust, Melting, Porosity

Scientific paper

A porous flow model that accounts for lateral focusing of melt toward a spreading center axis is presented. It is shown that dilation, or decompaction, of the porous matrix creates a high-porosity boundary layer beneath an impermeable cap of cooler solid mantle. The layer thickness, 200-300 m, is determined by a balance between the buoyancy of the melt and the viscous stresses resisting decompaction. The effects of the high-porosity layer is incorporated into a simple 2D flow and thermal model of a spreading center, and the velocity of melt and the porosity in the layer is calculated as a function of distance from the ridge axis. From this model it is estimated that, for a reasonable range of physical parameters, the fraction of melt that is extracted by flow along the decompaction boundary layer is sufficient to produce the observed thickness of the oceanic crust.

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