Supercontinent formation from stochastic collision and mantle convection models |
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| Authors: | Nan Zhang Shijie Zhong Allen K McNarmara |
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| Institution: | aDepartment of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA;bSchool of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA |
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| Abstract: | The large-scale tectonics in the last billion years (Ga) are predominated by the assembly and breakup of supercontinents Rodinia and Pangea. The mechanisms controlling the assembly of supercontinents are not clear. Here, we investigate the assembly of a supercontinent with 1) stochastic models of randomly-moving continental blocks and 2) 3-D spherical models of mantle convection with continental blocks. For the stochastic models, we determined the time required for all the blocks to assemble into a single supercontinent on a spherical surface. We found that the assembly time from our stochastic models is significantly longer than inferred for Pangea and Rodinia. However, our study also suggests that the assembly time from stochastic models is sensitive to the rules for randomly assigning continental motion in the models. In our dynamic models of mantle convection, continental blocks are modeled as deformable and compositionally distinct materials from the mantle. We found that mantle convective planform has significant effects on supercontinent assembly. For models with moderately strong lithosphere and the lower mantle relative to the upper mantle that lead to degree-1 mantle convection, continental blocks always assemble to a supercontinent in  250 million years (Ma) and this assembly time is consistent with inferred for Pangea and Rodinia. However, for models with intrinsically small-scale mantle flows, we found that even when continental blocks merge to form a supercontinent, the assembly times are too long and the convective structures outside of supercontinent regions are of too small wavelengths, compared with observed. |
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| Keywords: | Supercontinent formation Stochastic collision model Mantle convection model |
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