The oceanic plate as part of whole-mantle convection. Illustrative vertical cross-section showing the oceanic plate sinking and destructing on its way down into the deep mantle, whereas hot mantle plumes next to large-low-shear-wave-velocity provinces (LLSVPs) form and rise back to the surface forming the process of mantle convection. Resisting whole mantle overturn are only the continental lithosphere, which is light and strong and therefore resists subduction, and the large-low shear-wave velocity provinces (LLSVP), which are chemically heavy features atop the core-mantle boundary. Somewhat passive features in mantle covection are the centre parts of the mantle (in some locations at around 1’000–2’200 km depth) around which the anomalously hot or cold material circles, sometimes called BEAMS, an abbreviation for “bridgmanite-enriched ancient mantle structures“. Thicknesses of individual layers and structures are not perfectly to scale.
- Creator: Fabio Crameri
- This version: 07.08.2021
- License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Specific citation: This graphic by Fabio Crameri is adjusted from Crameri et al. (2019) is available via the open-access s-Ink repository.
- Related reference: Crameri, F., G.E. Shephard, and C.P. Conrad, (2019), Plate Tectonics☆, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.12393-0
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