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Mantle Phase Transitions, Layered Chaotic Convection, and the Viscosity of the Deep Mantle

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Chaotic Processes in the Geological Sciences

Part of the book series: The IMA Volumes in Mathematics and its Applications ((IMA,volume 41))

Abstract

Recent high pressure measurements of the phase diagram of mantle material (Ito and Takahashi, 1989) have demonstrated rather clearly that the phase-loop for the divariant Spinel-post Spinel transition is extremely narrow in pressure and that the Clapeyron slope of this transition is near -2.8 M Pa/°K. Extremely high resolution calculations of the nature of convective mixing in a flow in which both this and the Olivine-Spinel transition are present, demonstrate that the endothermic transition suffices to episodically enforce a high degree of layering upon the circulation, since mass flux through the phase boundary is on occasion strongly inhibited. The presence of the internal thermal boundary layer that develops across the phase boundary when such layering is present has important implications for the expected radial variation of mantle viscosity. We invoke recent inferences of the radial variation of mantle viscosity, based upon mantle tomography and non-hydrostatic geoid anomalies, to suggest that the observed variation of this transport property is in accord with expectations based upon the layered convection scenario. Inferences of mantle viscosity based upon glacial rebound data are also in accord with this view, since these data also require that the increase of viscosity across the 670 km discontinuity is small.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Toronto, M5S 1A7, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    W. R. Peltier & L. P. Solheim

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  1. W. R. Peltier
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  2. L. P. Solheim
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Minnesota Supercomputer Institute, Army High Performance Computing and Research Center, University of Minnesota, 55415, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    David A. Yuen

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Peltier, W.R., Solheim, L.P. (1992). Mantle Phase Transitions, Layered Chaotic Convection, and the Viscosity of the Deep Mantle. In: Yuen, D.A. (eds) Chaotic Processes in the Geological Sciences. The IMA Volumes in Mathematics and its Applications, vol 41. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0643-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0643-6_6

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