Mantle convection with continental drift and heat source around the mantle transition zone

Geological studies have suggested that a significant amount of crustal material has been lost from the surface due to delamination, continental collision, and subduction at oceanic–continental convergent margins. If so, then the subducted crustal materials are expected to be trapped in the mid-mantle due to the density difference from peridotitic materials induced by the phase transition from coesite to stishovite. In order to study the effect of the subducted granitic materials floating around the mantle transition zone, we conducted two-dimensional numerical experiments of mantle convection incorporating a continental drift with a heat source placed around the bottom of the mantle transition zone. The simulations deal with a time-dependent convection of fluid under the extended Boussinesq approximation in a model of a two-dimensional rectangular box with a height of 2900 km and a width of 11,600 km, where a continent with a length of 2900 km and heat source below the continent are imposed. We found that the addition of heat source in the mantle transition zone considerably enhances the onset of upwelling plumes in the upper mantle, which further reduces the time scale of continental drift. The heat source also causes massive mechanical mixing, especially in the upper mantle. The results suggest that the heat source floating around the mantle transition zone can be a possible candidate for inducing the supercontinent cycle.

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► Subducted continental materials are important heat source in the mantle.
► Heat source around the mantle transition zone induces supercontinent cycle.
► Heat source causes intense mechanical mixing in the upper mantle.