Authors
Paul J Tackley, Michael Ammann, John P Brodholt, David P Dobson, Diana Valencia
Publication date
2013/7/1
Journal
Icarus
Volume
225
Issue
1
Pages
50-61
Publisher
Academic Press
Description
The discovery of extra-solar “super-Earth” planets with sizes up to twice that of Earth has prompted interest in their possible lithosphere and mantle dynamics and evolution. Simple scalings suggest that super-Earths are more likely than an equivalent Earth-sized planet to be undergoing plate tectonics. Generally, viscosity and thermal conductivity increase with pressure while thermal expansivity decreases, resulting in lower convective vigour in the deep mantle, which, if extralopated to the largest super-Earths might, according to conventional thinking, result in no convection in their deep mantles due to the very low effective Rayleigh number. Here we evaluate this. First, as the mantle of a super-Earth is made mostly of post-perovskite we here extend the density functional theory (DFT) calculations of post-perovskite activation enthalpy of to a pressure of 1TPa, for both slowest diffusion (upper-bound rheology) and …
Total citations
20122013201420152016201720182019202020212022202320241491512101714171812610