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Tag: Slab

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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Slab retreat dynamics

Three different ways to allow for fast subduction trench retreat.

Sketch of three different ways to allow for fast subduction trench retreat that are flattening of the slab from side view (top left), curvature of the slab from top view for narrow (top centre) and wide subduction zones (bottom), and partial slab damage (i.e., slab window) from side view (top right). Shown are initial (grey) and end position (black) of the plate and corresponding mantle flow (blue) that displaces mantle material from its initial region (orange) to its final region (green).

  • Creator: Fabio Crameri
  • This version: 12.09.2021
  • License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
  • Specific citation: This graphic by Fabio Crameri from Crameri and Tackley (2014) is available via the open-access s-Ink repository.
  • Related reference: Crameri, F., and P.J. Tackley (2014), Spontaneous development of arcuate single-sided subduction in global 3-D mantle convection models with a free surface, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 119(7), 5921-5942, doi:10.1002/2014JB010939
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Subduction seismic anisotropy

Illustration of constraints on subduction zone seismic anisotropy from a global compilation of shear-wave splitting measurements.

Illustration of constraints on subduction zone seismic anisotropy from shear-wave splitting measurements from the compilation presented in Long (2013). The subduction trenches compiled by Bird (2003) are shown in black. The anisotropic signals of the wedge (orange) and back-slab regions (blue) are shown separately. Blue arrows indicate average fast directions for the back-slab splitting signal from SKS (seismic waves traveling through the Outer Core), local S, and source-side tele-seismic S-splitting measurements (Long and Silver, 2009; Paczkowski, 2012). Orange arrows indicate average fast directions for wedge anisotropy from local S splitting (Long and Wirth, 2013). In regions where multiple fast directions are shown, splitting patterns exhibit a mix of trench-parallel, trench-perpendicular, and oblique fast directions.

  • Creator: Fabio Crameri
  • This version: 01.09.2021
  • License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
  • Specific citation: This graphic by Fabio Crameri after Crameri and Tackley (2014) and Long (2013) is available via the open-access s-Ink repository.
  • Related references:
    Crameri, F., and P.J. Tackley (2014), Spontaneous development of arcuate single-sided subduction in global 3-D mantle convection models with a free surface, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 119(7), 5921-5942, doi:10.1002/2014JB010939
    Long, M. D. (2013), Constraints on subduction geodynamics from seismic anisotropy, Rev. Geophys., 51, 76–112, doi:10.1002/rog.20008
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Slab tearing

Time-evolution of subduction slab break-off shown in a global spherical 3-D model.

Evolution of subduction slab tearing and eventual slab break-off shown in a global spherical 3-D model by contours of viscosity. The stiff down-going plate (yellow) is moving towards the observer before subduction and is starting to laterally tear apart at depth, while the remaining intact part continues to subduct.

  • Creator: Fabio Crameri
  • This version: 01.09.2021
  • License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
  • Specific citation: This graphic by Fabio Crameri from Crameri and Tackley (2014) is available via the open-access s-Ink repository.
  • Related reference: Crameri, F., and P.J. Tackley (2014), Spontaneous development of arcuate single-sided subduction in global 3-D mantle convection models with a free surface, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 119(7), 5921-5942, doi:10.1002/2014JB010939
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Mobile-lid mantle convection

Temporal evolution of a global, fully spherical, 3D model of whole-mantle convection.

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
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Mantle convection

Illustrative vertical cross-section showing the oceanic plate as part of whole-mantle convection.

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.

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