Tectonic modes of mantle convection and their implications for Earth's tectonic evolution based on three-dimensional numerical simulations

作     者：Song XIANG Jinshui HUANG Bingcheng WU 

作者机构：School of Earth and Space Sciences University of Science and Technology of China CAS Center of Excellence in Comparative Planetary Studies 

出 版 物：《Science China Earth Sciences》 (中国科学:地球科学(英文版))

年 卷 期：2025年第1期

页      面：270-296页

核心收录：

学科分类：070904[理学-构造地质学] 0709[理学-地质学] 07[理学] 

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 42074105 and 92155204) the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDB 41000000) 

摘      要：Five tectonic modes of mantle convection are obtained and analyzed with three-dimensional numerical models in a spherical shell domain. The five tectonic convective modes are non-plate mobile-lid, plate-like mobile-lid, episodic plate-like mobile-lid, episodic stagnant-lid, and stagnant-lid convective modes, respectively. The typical characteristics of these five tectonic modes and their numerical classification criteria based on plateness, mobility, and their standard deviations are presented and discussed. The results show that the yield stress of the lithosphere has profound effects on the tectonic convective *** the gradual increase of yield stress, the tectonic mode of mantle convection changes from one to another sequentially through the aforementioned five modes. Additionally, as the Rayleigh number increases, the range of yield stress for the platelike mobile-lid convective mode decreases, and the dimensionless transition stress between different tectonic modes ***, the dimensional transition stress between the non-plate mobile-lid convective mode and plate-like mobile-lid convective mode increases with the increase of Rayleigh number, but decreases between other tectonic modes. Furthermore, we find that the transition stress between different tectonic modes is inversely proportional to the internal heating rate, with the transition stress decreasing as the internal heating rate increases. The fitting analysis of the transition stress between tectonic modes shows that Earth s current plate tectonics correspond to a lithospheric yield stress of 150–250 MPa, which aligns with the strength of serpentinized mantle rock determined by experimental petrography. If the Archean mantle was 300°C warmer than it is today, then the Earth was in an episodic stagnant-lid convective mode. The tectonic evolution of the Earth s surface is closely related to the lithospheric strength and the process of thermal evolution. If the lithospheric strength w