The Processes of Heat and Mass Transfer in the Earth’s Mantle

Abstract

The processes of global heat and mass transfer in the Earth are manifested in the form of thermo-compositional convection in the mantle, which is the driving force of global geodynamics. The feature of this convection is that it is accompanied by very large changes in the properties of the material. The paper presents an overview of numerical models of the authors that reproduce the main global geodynamic processes. Presented models are as follow: the splitting of the lithosphere into separate rigid plates in thermal convection with viscoplastic rheology; the model of vigorous thermal convection with generation of mantle plumes; the model of quasi-rigid continents floating on the convective viscous mantle; the model of thermal convection complicated by phase transitions; the models of thermo-compositional convection, in which massive piles of heavy material are formed at the bottom of the mantle. A schematic geodynamic model of the global heat and mass transfer in the modern Earth is presented, which is consistent at a first approximation with the currently available observational data of geophysics, geochemistry, geology and numerical modeling.