Strong plates enhance mantle mixing in early Earth.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Agrusta R
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6045636 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Strong plates enhance mantle mixing in early Earth.
Agrusta Roberto R van Hunen Jeroen J Goes Saskia S
Nature communications 20180713 1
In the present-day Earth, some subducting plates (slabs) are flattening above the upper-lower mantle boundary at ~670 km depth, whereas others go through, indicating a mode between layered and whole-mantle convection. Previous models predicted that in a few hundred degree hotter early Earth, convection was likely more layered due to dominant slab stagnation. In self-consistent numerical models where slabs have a plate-like rheology, strong slabs and mobile plate boundaries favour stagnation for ...[more]
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