Thermal Convection in an Initially Compositionally Stratified Fluid Heated from Below: Application to a Model for the Evolution of the Moon

Details Thermal Convection in an Initially Compositionally Stratified Fluid Heated from Below: Application to a Model for the Evolution of the Moon Thermal Convection in an Initially Compositionally Stratified Fluid Heated from Below: Application to a Model for the Evolution of the Moon

Mar 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996lpi....27...21a&link_type=abstract

Lunar and Planetary Science, volume 27, page 21

Computer Science

2

Basalt: Mare, Convection: Thermal, Magma Ocean, Moon: Evolution, Stratification: Chemical

Scientific paper

Stable compositional stratification resulting from the formation and early differentiation of a planet may play a significant role in its thermal evolution. Plumes generated by unstable thermal boundary layers in a fluid of sufficiently strong stable compositional stratification rise to their height of neutral buoyancy, developing a thermally and compositionally mixed layer which thickens with time. One model of mare basalt formation supposes that during initial differentiation, dense illmenite and radioactive element enriched cumulates resulting from the final stages of magma ocean solidification sink to the center of the Moon. This provides a flux of heat into the base of the newly stably stratified lunar mantle, leading to the development of a thickening mixed layer. Melting at the top of such a mixed layer may provide a source for mare basalts, producing melt at appropriate depths and time interval after solidification of the magma ocean. The purpose of this study is to use numerical solutions of the equations governing buoyant viscous flow to further investigate this simple theoretical model of lunar evolution by better quantifying the rate of development of a mixed layer.

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