The structure of thermal convection and geotherms beneath a continent and ocean |
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| Authors: | A P Trubitsyn |
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| Institution: | 1. Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Bol’shaya Gruzinskaya 10, Moscow, 123995, Russia
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| Abstract: | The formation of the thermal cross section of the lithosphere and mantle upon the interaction between the mantle convection and the immobile continent surrounded by the oceanic lithosphere is studied by numerical modeling. The convective temperature and velocity fields and then the averaged geotherms for subcontinental and suboceanic regions up to the boundary with the core are calculated from the solution of convection equations with a jump in viscosity in the continental zone. Using the experimental data on the solidus temperature in the rocks of the upper mantle, the average thickness of the continental and oceanic lithosphere is estimated at 190 and 30 km, respectively. The effect of a hot spot formed in the subcontinental upper mantle at a depth of 250–500 km, which has not been previously noted, is revealed. Although the temperature in this zone is typically assumed to be close to adiabatic, the calculations show that it is actually higher than adiabatic by up to 200°C. The physical mechanism responsible for this effect is associated with the accumulation of convective heat beneath the thermally insulating layer of the continental lithosphere. The revealed anomalies can be important in studying the phase and mineral transformations at the base of the lithosphere and in the regional geodynamical reconstructions. |
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