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Compositional mantle layering revealed by slab stagnation at ~1000-km depth
Improved constraints on lower-mantle composition are fundamental to understand the accretion, differentiation, and thermochemical evolution of our planet. Cosmochemical arguments indicate that lower-mantle rocks may be enriched in Si relative to upper-mantle pyrolite, whereas seismic tomography imag...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4730845/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26824060 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500815 |
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author | Ballmer, Maxim D. Schmerr, Nicholas C. Nakagawa, Takashi Ritsema, Jeroen |
author_facet | Ballmer, Maxim D. Schmerr, Nicholas C. Nakagawa, Takashi Ritsema, Jeroen |
author_sort | Ballmer, Maxim D. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Improved constraints on lower-mantle composition are fundamental to understand the accretion, differentiation, and thermochemical evolution of our planet. Cosmochemical arguments indicate that lower-mantle rocks may be enriched in Si relative to upper-mantle pyrolite, whereas seismic tomography images suggest whole-mantle convection and hence appear to imply efficient mantle mixing. This study reconciles cosmochemical and geophysical constraints using the stagnation of some slab segments at ~1000-km depth as the key observation. Through numerical modeling of subduction, we show that lower-mantle enrichment in intrinsically dense basaltic lithologies can render slabs neutrally buoyant in the uppermost lower mantle. Slab stagnation (at depths of ~660 and ~1000 km) and unimpeded slab sinking to great depths can coexist if the basalt fraction is ~8% higher in the lower mantle than in the upper mantle, equivalent to a lower-mantle Mg/Si of ~1.18. Global-scale geodynamic models demonstrate that such a moderate compositional gradient across the mantle can persist can in the presence of whole-mantle convection. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4730845 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-47308452016-01-28 Compositional mantle layering revealed by slab stagnation at ~1000-km depth Ballmer, Maxim D. Schmerr, Nicholas C. Nakagawa, Takashi Ritsema, Jeroen Sci Adv Research Articles Improved constraints on lower-mantle composition are fundamental to understand the accretion, differentiation, and thermochemical evolution of our planet. Cosmochemical arguments indicate that lower-mantle rocks may be enriched in Si relative to upper-mantle pyrolite, whereas seismic tomography images suggest whole-mantle convection and hence appear to imply efficient mantle mixing. This study reconciles cosmochemical and geophysical constraints using the stagnation of some slab segments at ~1000-km depth as the key observation. Through numerical modeling of subduction, we show that lower-mantle enrichment in intrinsically dense basaltic lithologies can render slabs neutrally buoyant in the uppermost lower mantle. Slab stagnation (at depths of ~660 and ~1000 km) and unimpeded slab sinking to great depths can coexist if the basalt fraction is ~8% higher in the lower mantle than in the upper mantle, equivalent to a lower-mantle Mg/Si of ~1.18. Global-scale geodynamic models demonstrate that such a moderate compositional gradient across the mantle can persist can in the presence of whole-mantle convection. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2015-12-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4730845/ /pubmed/26824060 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500815 Text en Copyright © 2015, The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Articles Ballmer, Maxim D. Schmerr, Nicholas C. Nakagawa, Takashi Ritsema, Jeroen Compositional mantle layering revealed by slab stagnation at ~1000-km depth |
title | Compositional mantle layering revealed by slab stagnation at ~1000-km depth |
title_full | Compositional mantle layering revealed by slab stagnation at ~1000-km depth |
title_fullStr | Compositional mantle layering revealed by slab stagnation at ~1000-km depth |
title_full_unstemmed | Compositional mantle layering revealed by slab stagnation at ~1000-km depth |
title_short | Compositional mantle layering revealed by slab stagnation at ~1000-km depth |
title_sort | compositional mantle layering revealed by slab stagnation at ~1000-km depth |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4730845/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26824060 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500815 |
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