The subsidence of the sea floor is generally considered a consequence of its passive cooling and densifying since its formation at the ridge and is therefore regarded as a function of lithospheric age only. However, the lithosphere is defined as the thermal boundary layer of mantle convection, which should thus determine its structure. We examined the evolution of the lithosphere structure and ...

We investigate the influence on mantle convection of the negative Clapeyron slope ringwoodite to perovskite and ferro-periclase mantle phase transition, which is correlated with the seismic discontinuity at 660 km depth. In particular, we focus on understanding the influence of the magnitude of the Clapeyron slope (as measured by the Phase Buoyancy parameter, P ) and the vigour of convection (a...

Oceanic lithosphere is rapidly recycled into the mantle through subduction, an important part of the dynamic evolution of the Earth. Cratonic continental lithosphere, however, can exist for billions of years, moving coherently with the tectonic plates. At the Caribbean–South American Plate margin, a complex subduction system and continental transform fault is adjacent to the South American crat...

[1] We provide new insights into the lithosphere-mantle coupling problem through a joint modeling of lithosphere dynamics and mantle convection and through comparison of model results with the high resolution velocity gradient tensor model along the Earth’s plate boundary zones. Using a laterally variable effective viscosity lithosphere model, we compute depth integrated deviatoric stresses ass...

New isotopic studies of Nd, the daughter product of the short-lived and now extinct isotope Sm, have revealed that the accessible part of the silicate Earth (e.g., upper mantle and crust) is more radiogenic in Nd/Nd than that of chondritic meteorites. The positive Nd anomaly of the Earth’s mantle implies that the Sm/Nd ratio of the mantle was fractionated early in Earth’s history and that the c...

[1] We analyze moment tensor solutions from deep subduction zone earthquakes to determine global slab deformation patterns. Inferred strain rates are compared to predicted deformation patterns from fluid models to help constrain the first‐order radial and lateral viscosity structure of the Earth. While all slabs that reach the lower mantle are compressed at their tip, intermediate depth pattern...

[1] Seismic tomography has revealed two large low shear velocity provinces (LLSVPs) in the lowermost mantle beneath the central Pacific and Africa. The LLSVPs are further shown to be compositionally different from their surroundings. Among several hypotheses put forth in recent years to explain the cause of the LLSVPs, one postulates that they are thermochemical piles caused by accumulation of ...

Receiver functions derived from body waves recorded in Iceland and on the Hawaiian Islands reveal a seismic velocity discontinuity at about 1050 km depth beneath the two regions of presumed mantle upwelling. The waveforms of the converted phases from the mid-mantle discontinuity indicate a velocity increase with depth. The lack of consistent scattering found in recent systematic searches for se...

The thermal conductivity of mantle materials has two components, the lattice component klat from phonons and the radiative component krad due to photons. These two contributions of variable thermal conductivity have a nonlinear dependence in the temperature, thus endowing the temperature equation in mantle convection with a strongly nonlinear character. The temperature derivatives of these two ...