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Tag: Dynamic planet

Earth interior model

Simplified model of the Earth’s interior and its global dynamics featuring a solid inner and a fluid outer core, a viscous partially molten but not fluid mantle, and characteristic surface topography.

Simplified model of the Earth interior and its global dynamics featuring a solid inner and a fluid outer core, a viscous partially molten but not fluid mantle, with hot material rising from the core-mantle boundary in form of active mantle plumes and cold material, including oceanic surface plates, sinking back into the mantle in a process called subduction. The dynamics in the Earth interior crucially shapes the rocky surface of the planet, creating mountain ranges and deep-sea trenches.

  • Creator: Fabio Crameri
  • This version: 06.10.2021
  • License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
  • Specific citation: This graphic by Fabio Crameri adjusted from Crameri & 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
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Planetary interior

Comparison of suggested mantle convection in the Earth (mobile-lid mode) and Venus (inefficient short slab mode).

Comparison of suggested mantle convection in Earth and Venus. Mobile-lid mantle convection in the Earth involves most surface plates (dark brown), which are recycled by sinking back into the deep mantle, where large low shear-wave velocity provinces (LLSVPs) exist (whitish). The ongoing plate destruction causes a more heterogeneous mantle and a surface of variable age, with young and thin oceanic plates and old and thick continental plates that remain at the surface. Mantle plumes (light red) tend to occur far away from sinking plates. By contrast, the mode of mantle convection on Venus is suggested to consist of a nearly immobile, mostly stagnant lid, and only localised, short sinking plate portions that are formed by (and thus spatially coincide with) hot mantle upwelling (light red). The resulting surface deformation matches observations from coronae on Venus. The short sinking portions do not, in contrast to Earth, significantly move their tail ends at the surface, which explains the uniformly aged, relatively thick surface plate (dark brown).

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Dynamic planet Earth

Illustration of the Earth with parts of its mantle extracted showing plate creation, cooling, and destruction.

Illustration of the Earth with parts of its mantle extracted showing plate creation, cooling, and destruction.

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