Three-dimensional treatment of convective flow in the earth's mantle

Journal Article · Sat Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1985 · J. Stat. Phys.; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01008348· OSTI ID:5375259

Baumgardner, J R

A three-dimensional finite-element method is used to investigate thermal convection in the earth's mantle. The equations of motion are solved implicitly by means of a fast multigrid technique. The computational mesh for the spherical problem is derived from the regular icosahedron. The calculations described use a mesh with 43,554 nodes and 81,920 elements and were run on a Cray X. The earth's mantly is modeled as a thick spherical shell with isothermal, free-slip boundaries. The infinite Prandtl number problem is formulated in terms of pressure, density, absolute temperature, and velocity and assumes an isotropic Newtonian rheology. Solutions are obtained for Rayleigh numbers up to approximately 10/sup 6/ for a variety of modes of heating. Cases initialized with a temperature distribution with warmer temperatures beneath spreading ridges and cooler temperatures beneath present subduction zones yield whole-mantle convection solutions with surface velocities that correlate well with currently observed plate velocities.

• Research Organization: Theoretical Division, Group T-3, University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
• OSTI ID: 5375259
• Journal Information: J. Stat. Phys.; (United States), Journal Name: J. Stat. Phys.; (United States) Vol. 39:3; ISSN JSTPB
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
580200* -- Geophysics-- (-1989)
CONVECTION
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
EARTH MANTLE
ENERGY TRANSFER
EQUATIONS
EQUATIONS OF MOTION
FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
HEAT TRANSFER
MASS TRANSFER
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
PRANDTL NUMBER
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS