A Geodynamic Model of the Evolution of the Earth’s Chemical Mantle Reservoirs

Uwe Walzer () and Roland Hendel ()
Additional contact information
Uwe Walzer: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Institut für Geowissenschaften
Roland Hendel: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Institut für Geowissenschaften

A chapter in High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering '10, 2011, pp 573-592 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract A dynamic 3-D spherical-shell model for the chemical evolution of the Earth’s mantle is presented. Chemical differentiation, convection, stirring, and thermal evolution constitute an inseparable dynamic system. Our model is based on the solution of the balance equations of mass, momentum, energy, angular momentum, and four sums of the number of atoms of the pairs 238U-206Pb, 235U-207Pb, 232Th-208Pb, and 40K-40Ar. Similar to the present model, the continental crust of the real Earth was not produced entirely at the start of the evolution but developed episodically in batches. The details of the continental distribution of the model are largely stochastic, but the spectral properties are quite similar to the present real Earth. Fig. 6 reveals that the modelled present-day mantle has no chemical stratification but we find a marble-cake structure. If we compare the observational results of the present-day proportion of depleted MORB mantle with the model then we find a similar order of magnitude. The MORB source dominates under the lithosphere. In our model, there are nowhere pure unblended reservoirs in the mantle. It is, however, remarkable that, in spite of 4500 Ma of solid-state mantle convection, certain strong concentrations of distributed chemical reservoirs continue to persist in certain volumes, although without sharp abundance boundaries. Section 4 presents results regarding the numerical method, implementation, scalability and performance.

Keywords: Earth Planet; Rayleigh Number; Mantle Plume; Incompatible Element; Oceanic Lithosphere (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-642-15748-6_42

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783642157486

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-15748-6_42

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().