Compositional mantle layering revealed by slab stagnation at ~1000-km depth.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26824060.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.1500815 and PMC identifier 4730845.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Improved constraints on lower-mantle composition are fundamental to understand the accretion, differentiation, and thermochemical evolution of our planet. Cosmochemical arguments indicate that lower-mantle rocks may be enriched in Si relative to upper-mantle pyrolite, whereas seismic tomography images suggest whole-mantle convection and hence appear to imply efficient mantle mixing. This study reconciles cosmochemical and geophysical constraints using the stagnation of some slab segments at ~1000-km depth as the key observation. Through numerical modeling of subduction, we show that lower-mantle enrichment in intrinsically dense basaltic lithologies can render slabs neutrally buoyant in the uppermost lower mantle. Slab stagnation (at depths of ~660 and ~1000 km) and unimpeded slab sinking to great depths can coexist if the basalt fraction is ~8% higher in the lower mantle than in the upper mantle, equivalent to a lower-mantle Mg/Si of ~1.18. Global-scale geodynamic models demonstrate that such a moderate compositional gradient across the mantle can persist can in the presence of whole-mantle convection.