CSEDI Collaborative Research: Investigation of Thermo-Chemical Heterogeneity in the Deep Mantle

研究人员提议对地幔最低约1200千米的成分分层进行一项多学科的合作研究。研究人员假设，成分不同的区域的存在可以将来自地震、地球化学、热流和其他地球物理观测的观测约束协调到一个统一的地幔深部动力学模型中。初步的数值模型表明，尽管其表面发育了数百公里的地形，但本质上比上覆地幔密度高5%的高温深海物质层是动态稳定的。拟议的工作使用了二维和三维热化学对流的数值模型，地幔深部结构的地震学模型，以及模型地震速度和数值实验产生的其他地球物理观测数据的计算来验证这一想法。

9905779Hager The investigators propose to carry out a collaborative, multidisciplinary study of proposed compositional stratification in the lowermost ~1200 kilometers of Earth's mantle. The investigators hypothesize that the existence of compositionally distinct regions can reconcile observational constraints from seismological, geochemical, heat flow, and other geophysical observations into a unified model of the dynamics of the deep mantle. Preliminary numerical models imply that a hot abyssal layer of material that is intrinsically about 5% more dense than the overlying mantle is dynamically stable, though its surface develops hundreds of kilometers of topography. The proposed work uses numerical models of thermochemical convection in 2-D and 3-D, seismological modeling of structure in the deep mantle, and calculations of model seismic velocities and other geophysical observables resulting from the numerical experiments to test this idea.