Earth's Mantle and Crust Are in a Fiery Battle to the Death of Supercontinents

By Stephanie Pappas 07 November 2019

Earth's hot, gooey center and its cold, hard outer shell are both responsible for the creeping (and
sometimes catastrophic) movement of tectonic plates. But now new research reveals an intriguing
balance of power — the oozing mantle creates supercontinents while the crust tears them apart.

To come to this conclusion about the process of plate tectonics, the scientists created a new computer
model of Earth with the crust and mantle considered as one seamless system. Over time, about 60% of
tectonic movement at the surface of this virtual planet was driven by fairly shallow forces — within the
first 62 miles (100 kilometers) of the surface. The deep, churning convection of the mantle drove the
rest. The mantle became particularly important when the continents got pushed together to form
supercontinents, while the shallow forces dominated when supercontinents broke apart in the model.

This "virtual Earth" is the first computer model that "views" the crust and mantle as an
interconnected, dynamic system, the researchers reported Oct. 30 in the journal Science Advances.
Previously, researchers would make models of heat-driven convection in the mantle that matched
observations of the real mantle pretty well, but didn't mimic the crust. And models of the plate tectonics
in the crust could predict real-world observations of how these plates move, but didn't mesh well with
observations of the mantle. Clearly, something was missing in the way that models put the two systems
together.

"Convection models were good for the mantle, but not plates, and plate tectonics was good for plates
but not the mantle," said Nicolas Coltice, a professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure graduate school,
part of PSL University in Paris. "And the whole story behind the evolution of the system is the feedback
between the two."

Crust plus mantle

Every grade-school model of Earth's interior shows a thin layer of crust riding atop the hot,
deformable layer of the mantle. This simplified model might give the impression that the crust is simply
surfing the mantle, being moved this way and that by the inexplicable currents below.
 But that isn't quite right. Earth scientists have long known that the crust and mantle are part of the
same system; they're inescapably linked. That understanding has raised the question of whether forces
at the surface — such as the subduction of one chunk of crust under another — or forces deep in the
mantle are primarily driving the movement of the plates that make up the crust. The answer, Coltice and
his colleagues found, is that the question is ill-posed. That's because the two layers are so intertwined,
they both make a contribution.

Over the past two decades, Coltice told Live Science, researchers have been working toward computer
models that could represent the crust-mantle interactions realistically. In the early 2000s, some scientists
developed models of heat-driven movement (convection) in the mantle that naturally gave rise to
something that looked like plate tectonics on the surface. But those models were labor-intensive and
didn't get a lot of follow-up work, Coltice said.

Coltice and his colleagues worked for eight years on their new version of the models. Just running the
simulation alone took 9 months.

Building a model Earth

Coltice and his team had to first create a virtual Earth, complete with realistic parameters: everything
from heat flow to the size of tectonic plates to the length of time it typically takes for supercontinents to
form and come apart.

There are many ways in which the model isn't a perfect mimic of Earth, Coltice said. For example, the
program doesn't keep track of previous rock deformation, so rocks that have deformed before aren't
prone to deform more easily in the future in their model, as might be the case in real life. But the model
still produced a realistic-looking virtual planet, complete with subduction zones, continental drift and
oceanic ridges and trenches.

Beyond showing that mantle forces dominate when continents come together, the researchers found
that hot columns of magma called mantle plumes are not the main reason that continents break apart.
Subduction zones, where one chunk of crust is forced under another, are the drivers of continental
break-up, Coltice said. Mantle plumes come into play later. Pre-existing rising plumes may reach surface
rocks that have been weakened by the forces created at subduction zones. They then insinuate
themselves into these weaker spots, making it more likely for the supercontinent to rift at that location.
 The next step, Coltice said, is to bridge the model and the real world with observations. In the future,
he said, the model could be used to explore everything from major volcanism events to how plate
boundaries form to how the mantle moves around in relation to Earth's rotation.

Source: https://www.livescience.com/amp/earth-mantle-crust-supercontinents.html