The interaction of mantle plumes and the Earth's surface

New study by Arnould et al. (2020) looked at how mantle plumes interact with both the mantle flow and tectonic plates, using global numerical models self-generating plate-like behaviour. They also focused on the mobility/stability of mantle plumes and studied the physical mechanisms leading to their stability/mobility. The movie shows the temporal evolution of surface topography (left panel) and mantle cold (slabs in blue) and hot (plumes in orange) heterogeneities (right panel) in global models of mantle convection self-generating plate-like tectonics with the StagYY code.

Maëlis Arnould, Nicolas Coltice, Nicolas Flament, Claire Mallard. 2020. Plate tectonics and mantle controls on plume dynamics. Earth and Planetary Science Letters v547 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2020.1...