Rheology of the Earth's mantle: A historical review

Abstract

Historical development of our understanding of rheological properties of the Earth's mantle is reviewed. Rheological properties of the Earth's mantle control most of the important geological processes such as the style of mantle convection (e.g., stagnant lid versus plate tectonics) and the nature of thermal evolution. However, inferring the rheological properties of the Earth's mantle is challenging because of the presence of multiple mechanisms of deformation that have different dependence on time-scale (strain-rate), stress levels and other parameters. Through the integration of a broad range of observations including the elastic stiffness from tidal deformation and the viscosity from the concept of isostasy, a gross picture of rheological stratification of the Earth's mantle (a strong lithosphere, a weak asthenosphere and a strong layer below) was proposed in the mid-19th century. However, not only the physical basis for such a model was weak due to the lack of proper understanding of some materials science issues such as the interplay between elastic and viscous deformation but also the lack of understanding of temperature–depth relation associated with convection prevented our understanding of the rheological structure of the Earth's interior. Major progress occurred in the first half of the 20th century in our understanding of the atomistic mechanisms of plastic deformation in solids, and much of the theoretical framework on the plastic deformation of solids was established by late 1960s. Those developments provided a basis for scaling analyses that are critical to the applications of laboratory results to the Earth's interior. Major progress in laboratory studies on rheological properties occurred in the mid-1960s to the early 1970s in Griggs' lab using a new type of solid-medium high-pressure deformation apparatus to pressure ∼ 2 GPa and temperature ∼ 1600 K. The basic concepts such as the water weakening, non-linear rheology and deformation-induced lattice-preferred orientation were identified by their studies. However, large uncertainties in the stress measurements with this type of apparatus were recognized in the late 1970s and high-resolution experimental studies using synthetic samples were initiated in Paterson's lab in the mid-1980s using a high-resolution gas-medium deformation apparatus. However, experimental studies with such a gas-medium deformation apparatus can be conducted only at low pressures (< 0.5 GPa) and it is difficult to apply these low-pressure data to the Earth's interior deeper than ∼ 20 km. New experimental techniques to study rheological properties in Earth's deep interior have been developed during the last a few years. These techniques allow us to quantitatively study the rheological properties of Earth materials down to the lower mantle condition (∼ 24 GPa, ∼ 2000 K). Some geodynamic issues related to rheological properties are discussed including (i) the strength of the lithosphere and the origin of plate tectonics, (ii) the origin of the asthenosphere, and (iii) the deep mantle rheology and its influence on thermal history of Earth. Existing models on these topics are reviewed and new alternative models are discussed.