Plate tectonics on super-Earths: Equally or more likely than on Earth

Abstract

The discovery of extra-solar super-Earths has prompted interest in their possible mantle dynamics and evolution, and in whether their lithospheres are most likely to be undergoing active plate tectonics like on Earth, or be stagnant lids like on Mars and Venus. The origin of plate tectonics is poorly understood for Earth, likely involving a complex interplay of rheological, compositional, melting and thermal effects, which makes it challenging to make reliable predictions for other planets. Nevertheless, as a starting point it is common to parameterize the complex processes involved as a simple yield stress that is either constant or has a Byerlee's law dependence on pressure. Because the simplifying assumptions made in developing analytical scalings may not be valid over all parameter ranges, numerical simulations are needed; one numerical study on super-Earths finds that plate tectonics is less likely on a larger planet (O'Neill and Lenardic (2007)), in apparent contradiction of an analytical scaling study (Valencia et al. (2007)). To try and understand this we here present new calculations of yielding-induced plate tectonics as a function of planet size, focusing on the idealized end members of internal heating or basal heating as well as different strength profiles, and compared to analytical scalings. In the present study we model super-Earths as simple scaled up versions of Earth, i.e., assuming constant physical properties, keeping the ratio of core/mantle radii constant and applying the same temperature difference between top/bottom boundaries and the same internal heating rate. Effects that originate outside of the planet, such as tidal forces, meteor impacts and intense surface heating from a nearby star are not considered. We find that for internally-heated convection plate tectonics is equally likely for terrestrial planets of any size, whereas for basally-heated convection plate tectonics becomes more likely with increasing planet size. This is indicated both by analytical scalings and the presented numerical results, which agree with each other. When scalings are adjusted to account for increasing mean density with increasing planet size, plate tectonics becomes more likely with increasing planet size for all scenarios. The influence of the pressure variation of viscosity, thermal expansivity and conductivity may, however, act in the opposite sense and needs to be determined in future studies. At least in the simplest case, factors other than planet size, such as the presence of surface water, are likely most important for determining the presence or absence of plate tectonics.