Melting and differentiation in Venus with a cold start: A mechanism of the thin crust formation

Recent works argue that the venusian crust is thin: less than 10-30 km. However, any convective model of Venus unavoidably predicts melting and a fast growth of the basaltic crust, up to its maximum thickness of about 70 km limited, by the gabbro-eclogite phase transition. The crust is highly buoyant due to both its composition and temperature and it is problematic to find a mechanism providing its effective recycling and thinning in the absence of plate tectonics. There are different ways to solve this contradiction. This study suggests that a thin crust can be produced during the entire evolution of Venus if Venus avoided giant impacts

Kinetics of crystal growth in a terrestrial magma ocean

The problem of crystal sizes is one of the central problems of differentiation of a terrestrial magma ocean and it has been an arbitrary parameter in previous models. The crystal sizes are controlled by kinetics of nucleation and crystal growth in a convective magma ocean. In contrast with crystallization in magma chambers, volcanic lavas, dikes, and other relatively well studied systems, nucleation and crystallization of solid phases occur due to the adiabatic compression in downward moving magma (adiabatic “cooling”). This problem is solved analytically for an arbitrary crystal growth law, using the following assumptions: convection is not influenced by the kinetics, interface kinetics is the rate controlling mechanism of crystal growth, and the adiabatic cooling is sufficiently slow for the asymptotic solution to be valid. The problems of nucleation and crystal growth at constant heat flux from the system and at constant temperature drop rate are shown to be described with similar equations. This allows comparison with numerical and experimental data available for these cases. A good agreement was found. When, during the cooling, the temperature drops below the temperature of the expected solid phase appearance, the subsequent evolution consists of three basic periods: cooling without any nucleation and crystallization, a short time interval of nucleation and initial crystallization (relaxation to equilibrium), and slow crystallization due to crystal growth controlled by quasi-equilibrium cooling. In contrast to previously discussed problems, nucleation is not as important as the crystal growth rate function and the rate of cooling. The physics of this unusual behavior is that both the characteristic nucleation rate and the time interval during which the nucleation takes place are now controlled by a competition between the cooling and crystallization rates. A probable size range for the magma ocean is found to be 10^(−2) − 1 cm, which is close to the upper bound for the critical crystal size dividing fractional and nonfractional crystallization discussed elsewhere in this issue. Both the volatile content and pressure are important and can influence the estimate by 1–2 orders of magnitude. Different kinds of Ostwald ripening take place in the final stage of the crystal growth. If the surface nucleation is the rate-controlling mechanism of crystal growth at small supercooling, then the Ostwald ripening is negligibly slow. In the case of other mechanisms of crystal growth, the crystal radius can reach the critical value required to start the fractional crystallization. It can happen in the latest stages of the evolution when the crystals do not dissolve completely and the time for the ripening is large

Nonfractional Crystallization of a Terrestrial Magma Ocean

It has been suggested that evolution of a terrestrial magma ocean does not unavoidably follow a fractional crystallization scenario. Convection is able to preclude differentiation until a sharp viscosity increase occurs near some critical crystal fraction. However, this kind of crystallization and its physical and chemical consequences have not been previously studied. We consider an end-member, called here nonfractional crystallization. We begin with a simple equilibrium thermodynamical model of partial melts which is based on an ideal three-component phase diagram. It allows a self-consistent calculation of physical and chemical parameters in the melting range at all interesting pressures. In particular, adiabats of the convecting magma ocean are calculated. The sharp increase in the viscosity is supposed to occur near the maximum packing crystal fraction. However, almost independently of this value, convection occurs even in the highly viscous quasi-solid part of the magma ocean and it is strong enough to prevent differentiation in deep regions. A kind of compositional convection occurs due to the layered differentiation, although it is weaker than the thermal convection. Only a surface region undergoes an essential differentiation via melt expulsion by compaction. The thickness of this layer depends on the rheology of partial melts, critical crystal fraction, and crystal sizes but in any case the basal pressure hardly can exceed 5 – 10 GPa. Because of lower pressures in the Moon, the thickness of the differentiating layer is large and thus the entire lunar magma ocean could undergo a strong differentiation. Remelting due to the energy released by differentiation is crucial only for much deeper layers (possibly deeper than about 1000 km for the Earth). For the remaining shallow layer (p < 5 – 10 GPa) the predicted increase of the melt fraction is less than 40 % at the surface and decreases to zero at the bottom of the differentiating layer. Thus, the nonfractional crystallization is suggested to be a likely alternative to the fractional crystallization. The crucial and still poorly understood factors are suspension in convective layers, rheology of partial melts, crystal size, and surface conditions. The most pronounced chemical consequence of the nonfractional crystallization is an almost completely preserved undifferentiated lower mantle and possibly a significant undifferentiated part of the upper mantle. At all depths, in the beginning of differentiation not only the first liquidus solid phase but also subsequent phases have been partially crystallized. So, when the differentiation begins, it involves mixtures of phases. It is important for the remaining layer where differentiation is unavoidable: this layer does not have as strong differentiation of minor elements as in the case of fractional crystallization but it will still involve differentiation of major elements. Future geochemical calculations of this multiphase differentiation, considering both major and minor elements, could help to constrain the differentiation further

Can sharp seismic discontinuities be caused by non-equilibrium phase transformations?

A long-posed problem of the seismic discontinuities at the depths of 410 and 660 km in Earth's mantle is whether these discontinuities are caused by phase transitions alone or together with chemical layering. Among several tests, the sharpness of the boundary is one of the most crucial. Recent data suggest that the transition region thickness is less than 4 km for both the 410 and the 660 km discontinuities. This may be smaller than predicted by phase equilibria. We suggest that if there is a sufficiently large nucleation barrier for phase transformation and if the transformation front cannot move faster than the convective flow, the transformation in rising or descending material does not take place until the metastable overshoot becomes equal to the nucleation barrier. An avalanche-like transformation following this overshoot occurs in a very narrow region and can be the cause of a sharp seismic discontinuity. In this case, the topography of the phase boundary is also substantially modified

Entrainment from a bed of particles by thermal convection

Differentiation in magma chambers, in the Earth's core and in the partially molten early Earth is a competitive process between sedimentation and re-entrainment of crystals in the presence of convection. Previous studies show that the particles suspended in convective layers eventually settle and do so almost as fast as in the absence of convection. However, the nature and magnitude of the competing entrainment has remained unclear. Here we provide a simple theory and experimental evidence showing that entrainment occurs at the crests of dunes created in the particle bed at the base of a convecting fluid. In both laminar and turbulent regimes, the dune formation and entrainment are driven by viscous stresses produced by thermal plumes. At sufficiently high Rayleigh numbers the particles are probably entrained by Reynolds stresses. Entrainment in the Earth's core is hardly possible because it requires unreasonably small crystals. Entrainment of 10^(−2)–10^(−1) cm diameter crystals is very likely in magma oceans. For magma chambers entrainment requires large viscosities (> 10^6 P) and even when it occurs, the total amount of the suspended solid fraction is very small