Animation showing the temporal evolution of whole-mantle convection including plate tectonics. The convective turnover of the mantle is characterised by hot rising mantle plumes (indicated by a hot, red temperature isosurface), and cold and stiff subduction zones of heavy tectonic surface plates (indicated by grey viscosity isosurfaces). Like on the Earth, in this model the mantle convects including its surface thermal boundary layer, with subduction zones (i.e., the sinking of cold and heavy oceanic plates) being its main driver. The global, fully spherical, 3D mantle convection model has been run by the code StagYY and represents the actual dynamics in the Earth’s mantle under some assumptions and simplifications.
- 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 from Crameri and Tackley (2016) is available via the open-access s-ink.org repository.
- Related reference: Crameri, F., and P. J. Tackley (2016), Subduction initiation from a stagnant lid and global overturn: new insights from numerical models with a free surface, Progress in Earth and Planetary Science, 3(1), 1–19, doi:10.1186/s40645-016-0103-8
- Animated gif
- Colour-vision deficiency friendly
Faulty or missing link? – Please report them via a reply below!
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Hey Fabio!
I’m trying to download your fabulous whole mantle convection models (this and the stagnant lid versions) for teaching and the movie download link just opens a new tab with the animation but no download options. Please help!
Thank you!!
Antoniette
Hi Antoniette, these are provided as GIF files, so if you have the new tab open with them being displayed, just right-click on it and chose “Save Image As” for downloading the animated GIF file.
Thanks Fabio!