Rheological control of oceanic crust separation in the transition zone

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95124/1/grl9376.pd

Multiple volcanic episodes of flood basalts caused by thermochemical mantle plumes

The hypothesis that a single mushroom-like mantle plume head can generate a large igneous province within a few million years has been widely accepted(1). The Siberian Traps at the Permian Triassic boundary(2) and the Deccan Traps at the Cretaceous Tertiary boundary(3) were probably erupted within one million years. These large eruptions have been linked to mass extinctions. But recent geochronological data(4-11) reveal more than one pulse of major eruptions with diverse magma flux within several flood basalts extending over tens of million years. This observation indicates that the processes leading to large igneous provinces are more complicated than the purely thermal, single-stage plume model suggests. Here we present numerical experiments to demonstrate that the entrainment of a dense eclogite-derived material at the base of the mantle by thermal plumes can develop secondary instabilities due to the interaction between thermal and compositional buoyancy forces. The characteristic timescales of the development of the secondary instabilities and the variation of the plume strength are compatible with the observations. Such a process may contribute to multiple episodes of large igneous provinces.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62705/1/nature03697.pd

Methods for thermochemical convection in Earth's mantle with force‐balanced plates

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94785/1/ggge1131.pd

Deep storage of oceanic crust in a vigorously convecting mantle

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94626/1/jgrb15203.pd

Effects of pressure on diffusion and vacancy formation in MgO from non-empirical free-energy integrations

The free energies of vacancy pair formation and migration in MgO were computed via molecular dynamics using free-energy integrations and a non-empirical ionic model with no adjustable parameters. The intrinsic diffusion constant for MgO was obtained at pressures from 0 to 140 GPa and temperatures from 1000 to 5000 K. Excellent agreement was found with the zero pressure diffusion data within experimental error. The homologous temperature model which relates diffusion to the melting curve describes well our high pressure results within our theoretical framework.Comment: 4 pages, latex, 1 figure, revtex, submitted to PR

Stress, strain, and B‐type olivine fabric in the fore‐arc mantle: Sensitivity tests using high‐resolution steady‐state subduction zone models

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94925/1/jgrb15022.pd

Modelling gravitational instabilities: slab break-off and Rayleigh-Taylor diapirism

A non-standard new code to solve multiphase viscous thermo–mechanical problems applied to geophysics is presented. Two numerical methodologies employed in the code are described: A level set technique to track the position of the materials and an enrichment of the solution to allow the strain rate to be discontinuous across the interface. These techniques have low computational cost and can be used in standard desktop PCs. Examples of phase tracking with level set are presented in two and three dimensions to study slab detachment in subduction processes and Rayleigh–Taylor instabilities, respectively. The modelling of slab detachment processes includes realistic rheology with viscosity depending on temperature, pressure and strain rate; shear and adiabatic heating mechanisms; density including mineral phase changes and varying thermal conductivity. Detachment models show a first prolonged period of thermal diffusion until a fast necking of the subducting slab results in the break–off. The influence of several numerical and physical parameters on the detachment process is analyzed: The shear heating exerts a major influence accelerating the detachment process, reducing the onset time to one half and lubricating the sinking of the detached slab. The adiabatic heating term acts as a thermal stabilizer. If the mantle temperature follows an adiabatic gradient, neglecting this heating term must be included, otherwise all temperature contrasts are overestimated. As expected, the phase change at 410 km depth (olivine–spinel transition) facilitates the detachment process due to the increase in negative buoyancy. Finally, simple plume simulations are used to show how the presented numerical methodologies can be extended to three dimensions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Dehydration of subducting slow-spread oceanic lithosphere in the Lesser Antilles

Subducting slabs carry water into the mantle and are a major gateway in the global geochemical water cycle. Fluid transport and release can be constrained with seismological data. Here we use joint active-source/local-earthquake seismic tomography to derive unprecedented constraints on multi-stage fluid release from subducting slow-spread oceanic lithosphere. We image the low P-wave velocity crustal layer on the slab top and show that it disappears beneath 60–100 km depth, marking the depth of dehydration metamorphism and eclogitization. Clustering of seismicity at 120–160 km depth suggests that the slab’s mantle dehydrates beneath the volcanic arc, and may be the main source of fluids triggering arc magma generation. Lateral variations in seismic properties on the slab surface suggest that serpentinized peridotite exhumed in tectonized slow-spread crust near fracture zones may increase water transport to sub-arc depths. This results in heterogeneous water release and directly impacts earthquakes generation and mantle wedge dynamics