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van der Hilst & Karason 1999

van der Hilst, R.D. and Karason, H. (1999). Compositional heterogeneity in the bottom 1000 kilometers of Earth's mantle: Toward a hybrid convection model. Science 283(5409): 1,885-1,888.

Tomographic imaging indicates that slabs of subducted lithosphere can sink deep into Earth's lower mantle. The view that convective flow is stratified at 660-kilometer depth and preserves a relatively pristine lower mantle is therefore not tenable. However, a range of geophysical evidence indicates that compositionally distinct, hence convectively isolated, mantle domains may exist in the bottom 1000 kilometers of the mantle. Survival of these domains, which are perhaps related to local iron enrichment and silicate-to-oxide transformations, implies that mantle convection is more complex than envisaged by conventional end-member flow models.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

	Abstract

Keywords
sparse linear-equations, subducted lithosphere, trench migration, phase-transformations, layered convection, northwest pacific, least-squares, island arcs, viscosity, depth

Journal
Science
http://www.sciencemag.org/

Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science
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