SUMMARY Stagnant-lid convection, where subduction and surface plate motion is absent, is common among the rocky planets and moons in our solar system, and likely among rocky exoplanets as well. How stagnant-lid planets thermally evolve is an important issue, dictating not just their interior evolution but also the evolution of their atmospheres via volcanic degassing. On stagnant-lid planets, the crust is not recycled by subduction and can potentially grow thick enough to significantly impact convection beneath the stagnant lid. We perform numerical models of stagnant-lid convection to determine new scaling laws for convective heat flux that specifically account for the presence of a buoyant crustal layer. We systematically vary the crustal layer thickness, crustal layer density, Rayleigh number and Frank–Kamenetskii parameter for viscosity to map out system behaviour and determine the new scaling laws. We find two end-member regimes of behaviour: a ‘thin crust limit’, where convection is largely unaffected by the presence of the crust, and the thickness of the lithosphere is approximately the same as it would be if the crust were absent; and a ‘thick crust limit’, where the crustal thickness itself determines the lithospheric thickness and heat flux. Scaling laws for both limits are developed and fit the numerical model results well. Applying these scaling laws to rocky stagnant-lid planets, we find that the crustal thickness needed for convection to enter the thick crust limit decreases with increasing mantle temperature and decreasing mantle reference viscosity. Moreover, if crustal thickness is limited by the formation of dense eclogite, and foundering of this dense lower crust, then smaller planets are more likely to enter the thick crust limit because their crusts can grow thicker before reaching the pressure where eclogite forms. When convection is in the thick crust limit, mantle heat flux is suppressed. As a result, mantle temperatures can be elevated by 100 s of degrees K for up to a few Gyr in comparison to a planet with a thin crust. Whether convection enters the thick crust limit during a planet’s thermal evolution also depends on the initial mantle temperature, so a thick, buoyant crust additionally acts to preserve the influence of initial conditions on stagnant-lid planets for far longer than previous thermal evolution models, which ignore the effects of a thick crust, have found.
more »
« less
The dependence of planetary tectonics on mantle thermal state: Applications to early Earth evolution
For plate tectonics to operate on a planet, mantle convective forces must be capable of forming weak, localized shear zones in the lithosphere that act as plate boundaries. Otherwise, a planet's mantle will convect in a stagnant lid regime, where subduction and plate motions are absent. Thus, when and how plate tectonics initiated on Earth is intrinsically tied to the ability of mantle convection to form plate boundaries; however, the physics behind this process are still uncertain. Most mantle convection models have employed a simple pseudoplastic model of the lithosphere, where the lithosphere "fails" and develops a mobile lid when stresses in the lithosphere reach the prescribed yield stress. With pseudoplasticity high mantle temperatures and high rates of internal heating, conditions relevant for the early Earth, impede plate boundary formation by decreasing lithospheric stresses, and hence favor a stagnant lid for the early Earth. However, when a model for shear zone formation based on grain size reduction is used, early Earth thermal conditions do not favor a stagnant lid. While lithosphere stress drops with increasing mantle temperature or heat production rate, the deformational work, which drives grain size reduction, increases. Thus the ability of convection to form weak plate boundaries is not impeded by early Earth thermal conditions. However, mantle thermal state does change the style of subduction and lithosphere mobility; high mantle temperatures lead to a more sluggish, drip-like style of subduction. This "sluggish lid" convection may be able to explain many of the key observations of early Earth crust formation processes preserved in the geologic record. Moreover, this work highlights the importance of understanding the microphysics of plate boundary formation for assessing early Earth tectonics, as different plate boundary formation mechanisms are influenced by mantle thermal state in fundamentally different ways.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1723057
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10065516
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Philosophical transactions - Royal Society. Mathematical, physical and engineering sciences
- ISSN:
- 1471-2962
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Earth's style of planetary heat transport is characterized by plate tectonics which requires rock strength to be reduced plastically in order to break an otherwise stagnant lithospheric lid, and for rocks to have a memory of past deformation to account for strain localization and the hysteresis implied by geological sutures. Here, we explore ∼107Rayleigh number, visco‐plastic, 3‐D global mantle convection with damage. We show that oceanic lithosphere‐only models generate strong toroidal‐poloidal power ratios and features such as a mix of long‐wavelength tectonic motions and smaller‐scale, back‐arc tectonics driven by downwellings. Undulating divergent plate boundaries can evolve to form overlapping spreading centers and microplates, promoted and perhaps stabilized by the effects of damage with long memory. The inclusion of continental rafts enhances heat flux variability and toroidal flow, including net rotation of the lithosphere, to a level seen in plate reconstructions for the Cenozoic. Both the super‐continental cycle and local rheological descriptions affect heat transport and tectonic deformation across a range of scales, and we showcase both general tectonic dynamics and regionally applied continental breakup scenarios. Our work points toward avenues for renewed analysis of the typical, mean behavior as well as the evolution of fluctuations in geological and model plate boundary evolution scenarios.more » « less
-
more » « less
Abstract The style of subduction that prevailed on the early Earth, or even whether subduction was prevalent at all, is an important question in the evolution of Earth's crust, mantle, and surface environment. Here, two‐dimensional numerical convection models, that include grain size evolution to generate weak plate boundaries, reveal a clear transition in subduction behavior with increasing internal heating rate. Sustained subduction with a coherent slab gives way to a style where slabs periodically detach and sink rapidly into the deep mantle, with increasing internal heating rate. In this latter, “drip‐like” subduction regime, repeating cycles of slab growth by subduction, followed by necking and detachment of the lower portion of the slab, are seen. These cycles are termed “slab detachment cycles,” and similar behavior has been seen in regional scale subduction models of the early Earth. Fourier analysis is used to constrain the timescale of slab detachment cycles, and a simple scaling law for this timescale is developed. Applying the scaling law to the early Earth indicates that slab detachment cycles can occur on timescales of <10 Myr, even as low as <5 Myr if the lithosphere is thick and mantle temperature is
> 1900 K. These cycles may thus be capable of explaining repeating sequences of rocks with “arc” and “non‐arc” signatures seen in some Archean cratons. The drip‐like subduction regime could also have significant implications for the generation of the tonalite‐trondhjemite‐granodiorite (TTG) suite of rocks and exhumation of high pressure metamorphic rocks, two important features of the early Earth geologic record. -
SUMMARY The occurrence of plate tectonics on Earth is rooted in the physics of lithospheric ductile weakening and shear-localization. The pervasiveness of mylonites at lithospheric shear zones is a key piece of evidence that localization correlates with reduction in mineral grain size. Most lithospheric mylonites are polymineralic and the interaction between mineral phases, such as olivine and pyroxene, especially through Zener pinning, impedes normal grain growth while possibly enhancing grain damage, both of which facilitate grain size reduction and weakening, as evident in lab experiments and field observations. The efficacy of pinning, however, relies on the mineral phases being mixed and dispersed at the grain scale, where well-mixed states lead to greater mylonitization. To model grain mixing between different phases at the continuum scale, we previously developed a theory treating grain-scale processes as diffusion between phases, but driven by imposed compressive stresses acting on the boundary between phases. Here we present a new model for shearing rock that combines our theory for diffusive grain mixing, 2-D non-Newtonian flow and two-phase grain damage. The model geometry is designed specifically for comparison to torsional shear-deformation experiments. Deformation is either forced by constant velocity or constant stress boundary conditions. As the layer is deformed, mixing zones between different mineralogical units undergo enhanced grain size reduction and weakening, especially at high strains. For constant velocity boundary experiments, stress drops towards an initial piezometric plateau by a strain of around 4; this is also typical of monophase experiments for which this initial plateau is the final steady state stress. However, polyphase experiments can undergo a second large stress drop at strains of 10–20, and which is associated with enhanced phase mixing and resultant grain size reduction and weakening. Model calculations for polyphase media with grain mixing and damage capture the experimental behaviour when damage to the interface between phases is moderately slower or less efficient than damage to the grain boundaries. Other factors such as distribution and bulk fraction of the secondary phase, as well as grain-mixing diffusivity also influence the timing of the second stress drop. For constant stress boundary conditions, the strain rate increases during weakening and localization. For a monophase medium, there is theoretically one increase in strain rate to a piezometric steady state. But for the polyphase model, the strain rate undergoes a second abrupt increase, the timing for which is again controlled by interface damage and grain mixing. The evolution of heterogeneity through mixing and deformation, and that of grain size distributions also compare well to experimental observations. In total, the comparison of theory to deformation experiments provides a framework for guiding future experiments, scaling microstructural physics to geodynamic applications and demonstrates the importance of grain mixing and damage for the formation of plate tectonic boundaries.more » « less
-
This article provides a review on the studies of large temporal and spatial scale dynamics of the Earth’s mantle. The review focuses on relevant observations and their geodynamic interpretations and implications. These observations include present-day Earth’s plate tectonics, long- and intermediate-wavelength geoid and gravity anomalies, and mantle seismic structures, as well as important tectonism and magmatism that have happened in the last one billion years, associated with the formation and breakup of supercontinents Pangea and Rodinia. Much of the discussion is centered on how these observations have motivated geodynamic studies and modeling that seek to understand and interpret the observations. This review covers four topics. The first is on the primary characteristics of mantle seismic structure and their dynamic origin. The present-day Earth’s mantle is predominated by long-wavelength structures (i.e., degree-2 in the lower mantle and LLSVPs near the core-mantle boundary) and linear structures in subduction zones, both of which can be interpreted as a result of mantle convection modulated by surface plate motion history in the last 100 million years. The second is on the long- and intermediate-wavelength geoid and gravity anomalies and their dynamic interpretation. The geoid anomalies are explained by mantle flow that is driven by buoyancy associated with the mantle structure. Such studies indicate that the upper mantle is at least one magnitude weaker than the lower mantle and strongly suggest the existence of a weak asthenosphere. Third, the cyclic process of formation and breakup of supercontinents Pangea and Rodinia is surface manifestation of time-dependent mantle convection. During supercontinent formation and its early stage, mantle structure is predominately degree-1 with cold downwellings in one hemisphere and hot upwellings in the other hemisphere. However, the degree-1 structure starts to transition to degree-2 mantle structure with two major antipodal upwelling systems (e.g., the present-day Earth) in the late stage of a supercontinent, leading to supercontinent breakup. Abundant observational and dynamic evidence support the 1-2-1 model for supercontinent cycle and mantle structure evolution. The fourth is on the origin of plate tectonics and long-term thermal evolution of the Earth which is a fundamentally important but also controversial topic in the studies of earth science.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2017.0409
