CHAPTER 14 THE INTERNAL HEAT OF THE EARTH Earth's internal engine is driven by radioactively gener- ated heat and heat left over from the differentiation that took place early in the planet's history. The work done by the engine registers on the surface in the form of plate motions, earthquakes, mountain making, and volcanic eruptions. In fact, almost all of geology is ultimately related to Earth’s internal heat. ‘The evidence of Earth's internal thermal energy is everywhere: Voleanoes, hot springs, and the elevat- ed temperatures in mines and boreholes document the flow of heat from the interior to the surface (Figure 14-1). We could add such examples as global plate motions, earthquake activity, and the uplift of mountains, all of which represent mechan- ical work whose ultimate source of energy is the heat in the interior. Despite these clear manifestations of internal heat, we cannot positively reconstruct Earth's thermal history by working backward in time from present-day observations. To do so would be like writing a history of civilization on the basis of today’s newspaper. An infinite number of thermal histories could have brought our planet to its present state. Nevertheless, we can make plausible models by applying our general knowledge of the Earth and the other planets and using data gained from studies of heat flow, radioactivity, the trans- mission of heat by rocks, theological (flow) proper- ties of heated rock, and travel times of seismic waves, We have no guarantee that these models correspond to anything that happened, but they do provide insight into the present thermal state of Earth and its possible history. Before we consider the source of Earth’s internal heat and how this heat is transferred to the sur- face, we give a brief overview of the thermal history of the Barth, summarized from Chapter 1366 ‘TH BODY OF THE BARTH: INTERNAL PROCESSI Figure 14-1 Geothermal power plant at The Geysers, Sonoma County, California. Heat from the interior converts water to steam, which is piped through ‘turbines to generate 600 megawatts of electrical power. [From U.S. Geological Survey.] Heat Production and Transfer in the Earth HEAT SOURCES Radioactivity and the conversion of gravitational to thermal energy are thought to be the major sources of internal heat. The processes of planetary accretion and compression warmed the interior, and Earth started on its evolutionary course about 4.7 billion years ago with an initial temperature that may have been somewhere near 1000°C. Ra- dioactivity then took over, and the internal temp- erature began to rise. Core-mantle separation was triggered perhaps 4 or 4.5 billion years ago, when the temperature rose to the melting point of iron, The sinking of vast drops of iron to the core would have liberated some 2 x 10" ergs of gravitational energy in the form of heat, a huge amount—the energy equivalent of 10% one-megaton nuclear explosions. This heat was enough to produce exten- sive melting and reorganization, yielding a differ- entiated Earth, zoned into core, mantle, and crust. The principal types of rocks that make up the Earth’s crust are granites and basalts. Seismolo- gists and potrologists tell us (see Chapters 15, 16, and 18) that peridotite is an excellent candidate for the major constituent of the mantle. The heat produced in these rocks by the radioactive disinte- gration of uranium, thorium, and radioactive po- tassium can be determined in the laboratory. Table 14-1 summarizes the results. Because the radioac- tive elements like uranium are concentrated in granite as a by-product of Earth's early differentia- tion, this common rock leads in radioactive heat production.* Within each gram of granite about 300 ergs of thermal energy is produced per year. It is easy to see by multiplying this number by 2.7 x 10 grams—the amount of granite in a hypothetical spherical shell 20 km (12 miles) thick and of the same diameter as Earth—that some 10* ergs of thermal energy can be produced by an outer layer of granite only 20 km thick. This is equal to the total heat reaching the Earth’s surface from its- interior each year as determined by measure- ments. It is about 1000 times the energy released each year in earthquakes and about 250,000 times the energy of a I-megaton nuclear explosion! This simple calculation not only demonstrates the im- portance of radioactivity as a present-day heat- producing agent but also gives some measure of, the total volume of granite in the Earth’s crust, for “Uranium is one of the heaviest elements, yet it became concentrated in the outermost layers of the Earth instead of, sinking to the core. This is an example of how chemical affinity as well as gravity can be important in determining where Clements end up. Uranium has a strong attraction for oxygen, ‘which is most abundant in the crust, Oxygen migrates upward because it forme lightweight and eacily meltable compounds with calcium, sodium, potassium, aluminum, and silicon.Table 11-1 Radioactive Heat Production in Common Igneous Rocks ERNAL HEAT OF THE EARTH 367 Amount of radioactive Kind of rock ‘Thorium Granite 4 13 Basalt 05 2 Peridotite 0.02 0.06 ‘One calorie (eal) = 4.18 x 10° ergs. a layer much more than 10-20 km thick would generate more heat than is observed. We will see that much of the heat flowing out of the continents originates in the radioactivity of near-surface gra- nitic rocks, whereas heat flow from the sea floor, where there is no granite, has a deeper source. HEAT FLOW BY CONDUCTION Heat is energy in transit. It may seem obvious that heat flows from regions of high temperature to regions of low temperature—or in the example of our planet, from the interior to the surface. Not so obvious is the mechanism of heat flow or the rate at, which it occurs. Heat energy ina solid exists as the vibration of atoms. The intensity of the vibrations determines temperature. Heat is conducted when the thermally agitated atoms and molecules jostle one another, thus mechanically transferring the vibrational motion from the hot region to the cool one (Figure 14-2), ‘The quantity of heat transferred per unit time between two points is proportional to the tempera- ture difference per unit distance and to the proper- ty called thermal conductivity, which differs for each substance and is a measure of the ability of a substance to conduct heat. Rock is a very poor heat conductor: It has a very small thermal conduetivi- ty, which is why underground pipes don’t freeze and why underground vaults have nearly constant temperature despite large seasonal temperature changes at the surface. A lava flow 100 m (300 ft) thick would take about 300 years to cool. Heat entering one side of a plate of rock 400 km (250 miles) thick would take about 5 billion years to flow out the other side. In other words, if the Barth cooled by conduction only, heat from depths great- er than about 400 km would not yet have reached the surface! snt in rock (ppm) Potassium. Amount of heat produced (ergs/gramyear) 4 300 15 50 0.02 1 When a substance is so hot that it begins to glow, like a red-hot poker, heat can be transferred by radiation. Most radiated heat is emitted as electro- magnetic waves in the near-infrared and visible regions of the spectrum. This radiative transfer can be a more efficient process than conduction in some materials, but because the minerals in Earth’s interior are relatively opaque, radiative heat loss is probably less important than loss by conduction. There is no question that heat con- duction must be an important agent of heat trans- fer in the interior, but it may be overshadowed by convection. HEAT FLOW BY CONVECTION ‘The phenomenon called convection (Figure 14-8) is rather common. One can see it happening in a Heat lon’by conduction ——~ SePeeT Tr ‘otal Soletntatn! 3 Cee Neal 090, Figure 14-2 ‘Schematie representation of heat flow by conduction through 2 solid. Interatomic forces that bind atoms to each other are indicated by springs. Heat applied at the left induces thermal agitation of the atoms. Heat is, conducted as the vibrations gradually spread to the right.368 ‘THB BODY OF THE EARTH: INTERNAL PROCESSES Figure 14-3 A familar example of convection is seen when water is heated in l| a coffee pot. rapidly heating kettle of water. Because liquids conduct heat poorly, a kettle of water would take a long time to heat to the boiling point if convection did not distribute the heat rapidly. Convection is at work when a chimney draws, or when warm tobac- co smoke rises, or when cumulus clouds form on a hot day. All of those examples of convection are governed by the fact that 2 heated fluid, either liquid or gas, expands and rises because it becomes less dense than the surrounding cooler and heavier material(Box 14-1), Thus instead of heat being transferred slowly by conduction, it is transported more rapidly upward by the moving heated materi- al, Colder material flows in to take the place of the rising fluid, is in turn heated, and rises to continue the cycle. The regular flow circuit of rising warm fluid and sinking cold fluid shown in Figure 14-3 is called a convection cell. Under certain conditions solids can also “flow” (Figure 14-4). Over short terms, like seconds to oe Leadweight Many hours or placed ontop days later. lead ot wax sinks into the Figure 14-4 Materials ean behave as solids over short times and as viscous fluids over long intervals. Cold wax is a solid, but a lead ball placed on top of the wax slowly sinks into the interior in a few hours or days, as if the wax were a viscous fluid. Earth's mantle is supposed to show this dual behavior, permitting slow convection to occur. years, the Earth’s mantle behaves as a rigid solid, transmitting seismic waves efficiently and re- sponding elastically to the tidal pull of the Moon. But when stresses are applied over millions of years, the mantle is weak; we will see direct evidence for this when we discuss “floating” moun- tains in Chapters 18 and 19. Thus under long- enduring conditions of high pressure and tempera- ture, the mantle “creeps” and behaves as an extremely viscous substance, so that convection is indeed a possibility." ‘Now for the key questions—ones that have been debated by geophysicists for years: Is convection an important process of heat transfer within the Earth? Is conveetion now occurring or has it oc- curred at any time in the past? The discovery of sea-floor spreading and plate tectonics offers, in a sense, direct evidence of convection, although the flow pattern in the mantle is still unknown, The rising hot matter under mid-ocean ridges builds new lithosphere, which cools as it spreads away, eventually to sink back into the mantle, where it is resorbed (Figure 14-5). This is convective trans- port, in that heat is carried from the interior to the surface by the motion of matter. The process is enormously more complicated than is indicated by the simple convection cell shown in Figure 14-3. It involves melting, upwelling, solidification, hori- zontal movement, sinking, and resorption. And instead of the smooth flow of water, the motion may be jerky as a result of sticking and slipping at plate boundaries. For most geophysicists the debate over convec- tion no longer concerns its existence as much as its scale and periodicity. Does convection involve the entire mantle or only the upper few hundred ki- lometers? Is it continuous—that is, repetitive, cycle after cycle—or transient, occurring once every few hundred million years when the internal tempera- ture builds up to some critical value? We don’t know the answers, but some possible models will be discussed later in this chapter. In any case, convection in connection with the creation and spreading of the sea floor is an important mecha- nism for the transfer of heat from the mantle under the ocean. The British geologist Arthur Holmes was among. the first to propose convection as the driving mech- anism of continental drift. When he did so in the 1930s, Holmes was 30 years ahead of his time; corroboration had to wait for the extensive explo- The silicon compound Silly Putty illustrates how a solid can ‘low over long periods, It can be bounced like « ballor broken by ‘a sudden blow, but overnight a ball of Silly Putty will fow into ‘2 pancake shape under its owa weight.369 Box M-1 Convection Lord Rayleigh, one of the great English physicists of the last century, found that a fluid placed between a hot, ower surface and a cool upper surface, as in Figure 14-3, would convect when certain conditions were met. Con- vection is fostered by a large temperature difference and a high coefficient of thermal expansion—a measure of how much a material expands when its temperature is, raised. Because the expanded material is lighter, it tends, to rise, displacing the colder, heavier material, which sinks. Increasing the distance between the hot and cold boundaries also encourages convection. Convection is inhibited by viseosity—a fluid’s resistance to flow—and by a high thermal conductivity, which would make heat transfer by conduction more efficient, and convection, in a sense, less “necessary.” ration of the sea floor that began after World War II and the massive gathering of data that led to the concept of sea-floor spreading. Thermal State of the Interior HBAT-FLOW OBSERVATIONS Except for the heat received from the Sun, the heat flow from the interior is the most important terres- trial energy source. About 2 x 10" calories (cal), or 10 ergs, of energy per year reaches the surface from the interior. This averages out to 1.5 micro- calories (ucal) per square centimeter of surface area per second. This is about 100 times the annual energy release of earthquakes and about 3 times the total amount of energy we now use. It is more than 1000 times the energy required to lift the Rocky Mountains by 1 cm (0.4 in). Although inter- nal heat energy is more than enough to raise Subduetion: cooled lithosphere sinks =) ~ Lithosphere remetts Figure 145 ‘The motion of plates, spreading from mid-ocean ridges and sinking in subduction zones, is the surface ‘What kind of convective flow in the mantle goes swith the surace features? mountains and make earthquakes, it is a puny amount compared to the energy received from the ‘Sun. So far as controlling climate is concerned, it is the Sun, delivering 5000 times the energy from the interior, that is the dominant factor. Ultimately both solar and internal heat are radiated into space. Solar heat has its geologic consequences, however, in driving the atmosphere and hydro- sphere, the chief agents of erosion. In a real sense, the Earth’s internal heat engine builds mountains, and its external heat engine, the Sun, destroys them, Several thousand measurements of heat flow have been made on land and on the sea floor. One obtains a heat-flow value by first measuring the rate of temperature increase with depth in the Earth (the temperature gradient). This value mul- tiplied by the thermal conductivity of the rock gives the outward heat flow per unit area and per unit time. For example, at one place in the Rocky ‘Mountains, the temperature increases with depth by 25°C in 1 km (10! cm). The conductivity of the rock, measured from a sample brought to the Litnosphere forms Geog, from rang ot ogra ] Mid ge | Lithosphere cools as it spreads manifestation of convection currents in the interior. ‘The nature of the flow in the interior is uncertain.370 ‘THE BODY OF THE BART: INTERNAL PROCESSES, laboratory, was 0.008 cal/em/s"C. The heat flow is given by the product 25°C_ ,. 0.008 cal x 25°C_ ,, 0.008 cal _ 9 x 19-§ calicm'/s aaa x 10~ ealiem*/ On the land the temperature gradient is measured by lowering the thermometers into boreholes in the Earth. Sea-floor measurements are more plentiful, not only because the oceans cover more area, but. also because measurements there are easier to perform. Because temperatures at the land surface undergo both diurnal (daily) and seasonal varia- tions, deep holes are needed to remove these effects and the effect of flowing groundwater, which may cool or heat the rocks abnormally. Because the ‘ocean shields the sea floor from these effects, it is, possible to obtain accurate temperature gradients Ocean surtace Figure 14-6 ‘Heat flowing out of the sea is measured by plunging a ‘core tube about 10 m long into the sediments. ‘Thermometers on the side of the tube record the ‘temperature inerease with depth, and the thermal conductivity of the sediments is measured when the core is retrieved. The product gives the heat flow. in holes only a few meters deep. Drilling is unnee- essary, since the deep-sea mud can be easily pene- trated by the temperature probe as it falls into the sea bottom under its own weight (see Figure 14-6). CONTINENTAL HEAT FLOW ‘The continental crust is mostly granite in the ‘uppermost portion, and granite is radioactively the “hottest” rock, as Table 14-1 shows. We should expect, therefore, that some of the heat flowing from the continents originates in the granitic layer, but not all of it does. The main problem is to determine the heat budget—that is, to assess how much heat originates in the granite, how much comes from the deeper mantle, and how this all relates to the geologic history of a region. Geophysicists have recently developed a remark- ably simple way of unscrambling the diverse fac- tors. They sorted all available heat-flow data for North America according to geological region. For each region heat flow was plotted against the radioactive heat production from actual measure- ments of surface rock. By fairly simple mathem: cal analysis of the plots that resulted (Box 14-2), it became possible both to estimate the thickness of the radioactively “hot” surficial granite layer and to distinguish the heat originating below the crust (q) from that due to radioactivity in surficial rocks. The depth of the surficial layer turns out to, be nearly constant throughout the continent at about 10 km (6 miles), showing the remarkable extent to which differentiation has concentrated the radioactive elements at the top of the crust. ‘The value of qo, the deep heat, is not constant across the continent. For the Canadian shield qo is about 0.7 u.cal/em*/s compared with the average of the overall heat flow, q, reaching the surface in this region of 0.9 cal/em’/s. We see that 25% of the heat flux originates in the granitic layer of this geologically old (2-3 billion years), inactive prov- ince and 75% comes from below. Because of the low radioactivity of the basalts and peridotites under- lying the granitic layer in the lithosphere, most of this deep heat must be from below the lithosphere —that is, from regions deeper than about 100 km. The quantity qo could include heat delivered by convection in the mantle. ‘The average surface heat flow q for the Basin and Range province (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada) is about 2 yeal/em’/s, of which 1.4 ycal/em'/s is contributed by deep heat qo. Here 00, in this geologically young (0-65 million years) and active region, some 70% of the heat has a deep source. But twice as much deep heat is beingTH INTERNAL HEAT OF THE EARTH am Box 142 Unserambling the Sources of Heat P Flow from the Interior od 25 When total heat flow is plotted against radioactiveheat 2 production in surface rock for ench geological province, 20h— the plots are all linear, like the one shown. Plots for the different regions are very nearly parallel that i, ofthe ree same slope), but they have different intercepts. The lines § 15 fadonctwy” 4 || te Meat are given by the linear equation 5 of suri piece surface heat _ __ depth of, graniteheat =~ 10 flow aon granite production | lwsalen?s) —(acaems) fem) ale) re sexes ” ve “om Gee ior ceacaal en um 5 10 168 8 by Granitic heat production A is obtained by laboratory measurements of rock samples. The intercept qo corre- sponds to the point where there is no contribution from near-surface radioactivity (that is, A = 0) and so equals the heat originating in the deeper crust and mantle, The slope d is the thickness of the radioactively hot surficial Radioactive heat aroduction in surtace rocks (10° callers) granitic layer. Thus by measuring q in the field and A in the laboratory, and plotting the graph, the heat q ‘coming from the deeper layers and the thickness d of the surficial radioactive granite layer can be found, delivered here as in the geologically inactive Cana- dian shield. Some geologists believe that the rising plume of a convection current lies under the Basin and Range province and accounts for such observa- tions as the excess heat flux, the thin crust with evidence of recent fracturing, the recent volcanism, and the earthquake activity in that region. Does this mean that California will one day split from the rest of the country, with an ocean basin open- ing somewhere in Utah and New Mexico? At the rate of divergence—a few centimeters per year— we need not worry about the political consequene- es. ‘The Sierra Nevada, near the California~Nevada boundary, shows a surprisingly small deep-heat flux, qo = 0.4 jcal/em*/s, about half the total heat flow for this mountain region. Some geophysicists have speculated that because of an ancient plate collision, the Sierra Nevada block is underthrust by an old and still cool plate that reduces the flow of deep heat (Figure 14-7). The first two examples seem typical of the rest of this planet: low heat flow (~1 .cal/em*/s) in geolog- ically old and inactive areas, such as the large area of exposed Precambrian rocks in central and east- em Canada; high heat flow (~2 ycal/em*/s) in regions of more recent mountain building or vol- High heat flow Low neat tow Figure 14-7 ‘To account for the small heat flow found in the Sierra ‘Nevada, K. E, Torrance and D. L. Tureotte propose ‘that because of an ancient plate collision these mountains rest on an old and still cool plate that: reduces the heat flow from the deep interior. canism, such as the Alps or the western United States. Special cases like the Sierra Nevada, how- ever, require unique explanations.’ In each region the highly radioactive rocks at the top of the Heat flow is also low in regions of rapid sedimentation, such tas along the Gulf Coast of the United States. The sediments bblenket the heat from the interior, temporarily insulating the surface from the heat sources below. The flow of heat from the interior into thick accumulations of sediments is essential for the transformation of organic matter in the sediment into of] and gas.372 ‘THE BODY OF THE EARTH: INTERNAL PROCESSES continental crust account for less than 50% of the total outward flow of heat. The mantle contributes the remainder, the amount being about twice as much in regions of recent orogeny (mountain build- ing) and volcanism than in geologically old and stable provinces. Combining all of the regions, the average heat flow for the continents is about 1.4 pealicm*/s. ‘The separation of continental heat flow into contributions from near-surface granites and deep- er mantle sources and the identification of differ- ent geological provinces as “hot” or “cold” are new approaches to the understanding of intraconti- nental geology that are just beginning to be used. HEAT FLOW FROM THE SEA FLOOR ‘The continents may be likened to rafts embedded in large plates. The rafts have grown through geologic time. The oldest rocks found on Earth have been preserved on continents for nearly 4 billion years. Continents are difficult to destroy; they may be deformed, but they survive plate convergence because they are light enough to keep afloat. In marked contrast, the sea floor is created at mid-ocean ridges and destroyed in subduction zones on a time scale of 100-200 million years. Furthermore, sea-floor crust and lithosphere are made of rocks like basalts and peridotites, which show far less radioactivity than the continental granites. From these considerations we should expect the sea floor and continents to show com- pletely different heat-flow characteristics. Like the heat-flow observations made on land, the oceanic observations show a pattern, and from them a correlation with the geology of the sea floor has been found. Oceanographers tell us that al- though there is some variability in the observa- tions, the average heat flow for the major oceanic provinces is as follows. Newly created ocean ridges, younger than 5 million years, >3 jcal/em*/s; ocean basins 50-100 million years old, ~1.4 yeal/em*is; sea floor older than 125 million years and farthest from the ocean ridges, <1.1 peal/em’/s. You should be able to anticipate the explanation of the de- crease in heat flow from ridge crest to ocean basin to deep-sea trench. Mid-ocean ridges sit atop the rising plume of hot rock and magma that carries heat from the deeper mantle. This “mush” cools, solidifies, and becomes attached to the oceanic Lithosphere. As the lithospheric plate spreads away from the ridge, it loses its heat by conduction to the sea floor and gradually cools (Figure 14-8). For this reason, heat flow should decrease with the age of the sea floor, hence with distance from a mid-ocean ridge. The oldest parts of the sea floor should have the lowest heat flow, and these parts should be found farthest from ridges and closest to deep-sea trenches, where the cold slabs sink back into the mantle. Oceanic heat flow is thus dominated by the process of cooling of the recently created oceanic lithosphere. Geophysicists believe that this form of convection may account for as much as 60% of the total heat flow from the Earth and that this may represent a major mode by which the Earth has cooled. HOT SPRINGS AND THE SEA FLOOR Much of the heat in the ocean lithosphere is thought to be dissipated when cold seawater perco- lates into the many fissures associated with sea- floor spreading along mid-ocean ridges. The cold water sinks several kilometers, encounters hot basalt, surges upward, and emerges on the sea floor as hot springs enriched in dissolved minerals and gases leached from the magma. This hypothe- sis was verified by recent spectacular discoveries of such hydrothermal (hot-water) vents at several places along mid-ocean ridges. The hot springs seem to occur in two forms. In the Galépagos Islands rift zone the springs flow gently from cracks at maximum temperatures of about 16°C (60°F). On the Bast Pacific Rise near Baja Califor- nia, superheated water (880°C or 716°F) spouts forcefully from mineralized chimneys. The chim- neys are built up from the dissolved minerals that precipitate around the hot jet as it mixes with the near-freezing ocean-bottom waters (Figure 14-9). ‘The deep-diving submarine Alvin, not expecting such high temperatures, was nearly destroyed when it first approached a superheated vent. Hydrothermal vents have been called the discov- ery of the decade for several reasons. They repre- sent a major ore-forming process, possibly an im- portant new source of minerals, on the sea floor, ‘The entire ocean cycles through such hydrothermal systems once every 8 million years and this process profoundly affects ocean chemistry. The ecology of these vents is completely different from that of the dark, near-freezing, barren ocean bottom at great depths. Dense colonies of exotic life forms populate ‘the warm water surrounding the vents. AmongHeat flow weavers) Oceanslage E lr ae sing hot matter ° + Vertical and horizontal scale equal Figure 11-8 ‘The pattern of heat flow out of the sea floor. High values are observed over mid-ocean ridges. As the sea, floor spreads and cools, less heat reaches the surface. On the side of deep-sea trenches where the lithosphere plunges into the asthenosphere, rising magma from the melting lithosphere produces higher heat-flow (AL HEAT OF THE EARTH 373, Distance ron ndbe Voleanie Marginal Trench ‘basin ising mat 200 km values. A small region of secondary spreading may develop in a marginal basin behind the subduction zone. The Sea of Japan, which separates the Japanese island are from the Asian continent, is an example of such a region. Figure 14-9 Plume of hot, mineral-laden water spouts from mineralized chimney on the Hast Pacific Rise. The chimney and adjacent formations build up from dissolved minerals that precipitate around the hot jet as it mixes with the near-freezing ocean-bottom waters, [Photographed from the deep diving submarine Alvin by D. B, Foster, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]sr ‘TH HODY OF THE WARTHE INTERNAL PROCESSES them are new species of giant worms, clams, and crabs. The vent animals live on unusual bacteria that draw energy from the hydrogen sulfide, car- bon dioxide, and oxygen in the vent water. A new chapter of ocean science was opened by the deep- sea explorers who discovered the hot springs of the sea floor and verified the dominant role of circulat- ing sea-water in cooling the new crust formed at ocean ridges. TEMPERATURES IN THE EARTH ‘The average increase of temperature with depth, as measured in boreholes or mines, is about 2 or 3°C per 100 m (300 ft). How can we estimate temperatures in the Earth at depths greater than those we can reach with a thermometer—that is, below about 8 km (5 miles)? The problem is not an easy one, and the experts need all the help they can get, especially for the lower mantle and core. ‘Temperatures in the continental crust are fairly well known from measurements of surface heat flow, which can be separated into heat contribu- tions from the radioactive surficial rocks and from the underlying region by means of graphs like the one in Box 14-2. A knowledge of these two sources of heat is sufficient to fix the temperatures with some assurance for the continental crust. Geo- therms, or temperature-depth profiles, typical of such geologically old and stable regions as the eastern United States and of such young and active regions as the Basin and Range province, are shown in Figure 14-10. The higher heat flow in the tectonically active region shows up in the more rapid increase of temperature with depth. Forty kilometers below the surface the temperature rises to almost 1000°C in the active region. This is close to the point of initial melting of such deep crustal and mantle rocks as basalt and peridotite. In ‘contrast, the temperature at the same depth under the stable region reaches only the relatively low value of about 500°C. The association of tectonic activity and volcanism with subcrustal tempera- tures near the melting point, and of long-term geological stability with relatively cool regions of the crust, is an important discovery. For example, it supports the speculation that the Basin and Range province may overlie the rising plume of a convection current. ‘Temperatures in the suboceanic lithosphere are dominated by the process of cooling down from the high temperature of the magma that builds the slab in the first place. Referring again to Figure 14-8, we could make a good guess that the temper- ature under the ocean would be close to 0°C (the perature (C) Figure 14-10 ‘Temperature variation with depth in different regions, according to the ideas of R. F. Roy, D. D. Blackwell, and F. Birch. The higher heat flow in the Basin and Range provinee implies higher temperatures at depth in this young and active region. The temperature rises to almost 1000°C at 40 km. In the geologically older and more stable eastern United States, the temperature reaches only 500°C at the same depth. temperature of the bottom water) at the top of the slab, and close to 1200°C (the melting point) at the bottom of the slab, where it is in contact with the partially molten asthenosphere. Where the slab plunges deep into the mantle, we would expect it to warm gradually to the high temperatures of the material surrounding it. ‘One of the important tasks of the next genera- tion of geophysicists is to find a method for directly determining the temperature in the deep interior. Until this is done we can use only indirect evidence to speculate on the nature of convection within the Earth. We know that we can't simply extrapolate the temperature curves for the crust (see Figure 14-10) by straight-line extension all the way to the depth of the Earth’s core, at, 2900 km (1800 miles); that would give a temperature of at least 25,000°C at the Earth's center, which would require that most of the Earth be molten, This impossible situation shows once again that the important radioactive elements are concentrated in the outer- most layers and that the rate of temperature in- crease with depth (temperature gradient) must lessen below this radioactively hot zone. More efficient heat transfer in the deeper layers would also decrease the temperature gradient so as not to give impossibly high values. ‘At present all we can do is sketch a possible geotherm, showing temperatures as they might occur all the way down to the center of the Barth, where the temperature reaches 4300°C (Box 14-3).HEAT OF THE EARTH 375. Box 14-3 Anchoring the Geotherm In order to “anchor” the geotherm at a few points to keep it from drifting too far irom reality, the following facts are used: 1 Seismology tells us that the asthenosphere is partially molten. We therefore “fix” the temperature at a depth of 100 km (60 miles) at the solidus, or point of incipient melting, about 1100-1200°C. This is just about the temperature of lavas issuing from oceanic volcanoes, which provides a nice check. 2 At depths greater than 300 km (200 miles) in the mantle, the temperatures must be below the solidus. Wo know this because seismic shear waves cannot pass through a partially molten region without being severe- ly attenuated, and no such deadening is observed below the asthenosphere. We therefore use an estimate of the solidus recently inferred from laboratory studies as an Upper limit for mantle-temperatures below the asthenos- phere 3 Rapid increases in seismic-wave velocities are ob- served at depths of about 400 and 700 km (250 and 450 miles). These important clues will be discussed in Chap- ter 18 on seismology. They are caused by a more dense packing of the atoms of a major mineral constituent of the mantle—olivine, The sudden increase in density, or phase change, occurs when critical pressures and tem- peratures are reached. A few years ago the phase change at 400 km was actually duplicated in the laboratory by ‘squeezing and heating rocks to the pressure and temper- ature at that depth. Therefore, we know the pressure and ‘temperature at which the phase change takes place. This anchors the geotherm at 400 km at about 1500°C, "Phe conditions for the phase change at 700 km can be estimated theoretically. Using this estimate and seismo- logical data, geophysicists estimate the temperature to be 1900°C at this depth. 4 We will see in Chapter 18 that the core is primarily iron, molten in the outer part and solid in the inner part. Recently a new melting-point curve for iron has been used by geochemists to fix temperatures at the high pressures in the core (see figure). The temperature at the mantle-core boundary must exceed the melting point of iron to account for the liquid core, and it must be below the melting point of the mantle to account for the 0 Geatherm above (aslcies meting point S a 4200} ron cove malts z eee { below Meting mating Beginning temperature point ofmeting ae otmante A SI ‘Geotherm below 2 meting point s § ao E N. remperatte eases - Sto'accourt for ups tn sasmicswave veleciy 000 ‘emperature of ava soli Manto Woten overcome ooo 000 sco —4000 50006000 Depth (kn) |A geotherm (black curve) showing how temperature may inerease with depth from the surface to the center of the Earth. The probable melting-point temperature in the mantle ‘and core is depicted by the brown curve. Where the geotherm is below the melting point, as in most of the mantle or the inner core, the material is solid. Where the geotherm is at the ‘melting point, at depths of 100-300 km, the upper mantle is partially molten, The outer iron core is hot enough to be fully fmolten, Temperatures at Earth's center reach about 4300°C. ‘mantle’s solidity. It is an interesting and useful coinc!- dence that these upper and lower bounds on temperature fare close together at the mantle-core boundary, fixing the temperature at about 8700°C. Moreover, the geo- therm must cross over and fall below the iron melting- point curve at §100 km (3200 miles) in order to provide for the solid inner core insisted upon by the seismolo- gists, This gives a temperature of about 4300°C. It seems ‘unlikely that the temperature at Earth's center could be much above this value. ‘THE TECTONIC ENGINE It is widely accepted that tectonic phenomena— that is plate motions, mountain building, and earthquakes—are accounted for by internal con- vection currents. Many schemes for convective flow have been advanced. They vary somewhat in scale, some involving the entire mantle and others limit- ing the flow to the upper few hundred kilometers, Some fascinating calculations have led to a pro- posed scheme of convection in which the flow of matter takes place in the outer several hundred kilometers of the Earth. The model explains many of the features summarized earlier in Figure 14-8: these features are repeated in Figure 14-11, with the convective flow lines superimposed. An ascend- ing hot plume spreads laterally, cools by condue- tion to the ocean, and solidifies to form a cold,376 ‘THE BODY OF THE EARTH: INTERNAL PROCESSES Figure 14-11 Possible convection flow in the upper ‘mantle, according to D. H. Turcotte and E. R. Oxburgh. An ascending hot plume spreads laterally under the ocean ridges; cooling by conduction to the ocean, it solidifies to form a boundary layer, the 4” / cold, rigid lithosphere. The descending ‘old plume coincides with the sinking lithosphere of the subduction zone. brittle boundary layer—the lithosphere. A de- scending cold plume, the subducted lithosphere begins the return flow. The cycle of convection is completed by a countercurrent several hundred kilometers below the surface, which heats up and rises again. Buoyancy forces of the light, hot as- cending plume and of the heavy, cold descending plume drive the flow. The energy source is radioac- tivity plus perhaps some of the original heat left over from the early years of the planet. The veloci- Sulbduction zone Figure 1-12 Schematic diegram of possible large-scale convection currents in the Earth's upper and lower mantle and core. The degree of mixing between the three systems is still speculative. Plate tectonies is driven by the upper-mantle convective flow. (From. “The Dynamic Barth” by R. Siever. Copyright © 1983 by Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.] ‘Ascending plume Mar, 0190200 km ty of the flow, which is calculated for the model, agrees with the sea-floor spreading rates, and the heat flow at the surface matches the observational data quite well. In this model as in most other models, the plate-tectonie cycle dominates the heat budget of the outer several hundred kilometers of the Earth. These results encourage us to believe that the geophysicists who suggested these ideas may be on the right track in their search for the mechanism that makes the tectonic engine run. Midocean rope Oceanic crust Continental crust Radius (thousands at klometers)