Mantle dynamics in super-Earths: Post-perovskite rheology and self-regulation of viscosity

• We calculate using DFT the activation enthalpy of post-perovskite up to 1 TPa.
• We use this in calculations of compressible mantle convection in super-Earths.
• The viscosity profile self-regulates in order to lose the radiogenic heating.
• A super-Earth’s deep mantle is super-adiabatic and ∼isoviscous in mean profile.
• Plate tectonics occurs for all super-Earth sizes with the same surface conditions as Earth.

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 1 TPa, for both slowest diffusion (upper-bound rheology) and fastest diffusion (lower-bound rheology) directions. Along a 1600 K adiabat the upper-bound rheology would lead to a post-perovskite layer of a very high (∼1030 Pa s) but relatively uniform viscosity, whereas the lower-bound rheology leads to a post-perovskite viscosity increase of ∼7 orders of magnitude with depth; in both cases the deep mantle viscosity would be too high for convection. Second, we use these DFT-calculated values in statistically steady-state numerical simulations of mantle convection and lithosphere dynamics of planets with up to ten Earth masses. The models assume a compressible mantle including depth-dependence of material properties and plastic yielding induced plate-like lithospheric behaviour. Results confirm the likelihood of plate tectonics for planets with Earth-like surface conditions (temperature and water) and show a self-regulation of deep mantle temperature. The deep mantle is not adiabatic; instead feedback between internal heating, temperature and viscosity regulates the temperature such that the viscosity has the value needed to facilitate convective loss of the radiogenic heat, which results in a very hot perovskite layer for the upper-bound rheology, a super-adiabatic perovskite layer for the lower-bound rheology, and an azimuthally-averaged viscosity of no more than 1026 Pa s. Convection in large super-Earths is characterised by large upwellings (even with zero basal heating) and small, time-dependent downwellings, which for large super-Earths merge into broad downwellings. In the context of planetary evolution, if, as is likely, a super-Earth was extremely hot/molten after its formation, it is thus likely that even after billions of years its deep interior is still extremely hot and possibly substantially molten with a “super basal magma ocean” – a larger version of the proposal of Labrosse et al. (Labrosse, S., Hernlund, J.W., Coltice, N. [2007]. Nature 450, 866–869), although this depends on presently unknown melt–solid density contrast and solidus.