Estimating global subduction mass transport

这个项目的重点是板块向下地幔的搬运。它将：1)扩大对板坯停滞程度的约束范围，例如通过对过渡带厚度的详细分析以及地震资料的假设驱动反演；2)通过进一步的软件开发，构建热化学多相变地幔系统停滞系统的区域动力学模型和简化的全局参数化；3)对垂直和水平输运计算对流模型进行基准测试。来自代表性不足群体的研究生将接受跨学科研究方面的培训。所有项目软件将公开开发，并在网上免费共享。层析成像反演和建模工具将被应用到固体地球教学和研究环境软件框架中，允许对完全不同的地球动力学问题进行数据驱动的假设检验，并促进对地球科学专业学生进行跨学科研究的培训。更好地估计随着时间的推移和带有误差条的板块通量，将有助于约束地球化学混合和地球热演化模型。这项研究将有助于使用板块作为绝对板块构造参考框架，而板块动力学还具有其他广泛的含义，例如岩石圈相对于下地幔的净旋转、与超大陆旋回的相互作用以及海平面变化。

This project focuses on slab mass transport into the lower mantle. It will, 1), expand the range of constraints on the degree of slab stagnation, e.g. by detailed analysis of transition zone thickness as well as hypothesis-driven reinversion of seismological data; 2), construct, by means of further software development, regional dynamic models and simplified global parameterizations for stagnation systematics in a thermo-chemical, multi-phase transition mantle system; and, 3), benchmark these computational convection models for vertical and horizontal transport. A graduate student from an under-represented group will be trained in interdisciplinary research. All project software will be developed openly and shared freely online. The tomographic inversion and modeling tools will be implemented into the Solid Earth Teaching and Research Environment software framework, allowing data-driven hypothesis testing for entirely different geodynamic questions and facilitating the training of Earth science students in interdisciplinary research.Better estimates of the slab flux, over time and with error bars, will help to constrain geochemical mixing and thermal Earth evolution models. The study will contribute to the use of slabs for absolute plate-tectonic reference frames, and slab dynamics has other, broad implications such as on net rotations of the lithosphere with respect to the lower mantle, interactions with the super-continental cycle, and sealevel variations.