Time scales of Core Formation in Terrestrial Planets by Rayleigh-Taylor Instabilities

Details Time scales of Core Formation in Terrestrial Planets by Rayleigh-Taylor Instabilities Time scales of Core Formation in Terrestrial Planets by Rayleigh-Taylor Instabilities

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.v11d0621s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #V11D-0621

Physics

1027 Composition Of The Planets, 8115 Core Processes (1213, 1507), 8125 Evolution Of The Earth (0325)

Scientific paper

The presence of metallic cores in several terrestrial planets has been confirmed by various types of direct and indirect observations. However, processes that lead to the formation of metallic cores in terrestrial planets remain poorly known. Geochemical constraints on core formation provided by Hf/W systematics suggests it is a relatively fast process which may have been completed within less than 100 Myrs for planets such as the Earth or Mars. Nevertheless, many studies focusing on planets formation by accretion processes conclude that soon after the accretion of Earth or Mars sized planets an incomplete stage of core formation is reached, where a thick metallic layer overlies a silicate protocore. Such a configuration is gravitationnaly unstable and one expects a destabilization of this system. We therefore investigate the conditions under which core formation can happen by Rayleigh-Taylor destabilization within the time scale inferred by geochemistry. We set up series of numerical experiments in spherical geometry where Lagrangian tracer particles are used to model the presence of silicate/metallic material inside a spherical (yin- yang) domain. Different viscous rheologies are considered from Newtonian to highly non linear rheologies. Effects of shear and gravitational heating will also be investigated systematically.

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