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Convection in an internally heated stratified heterogeneous reservoir

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2019

Angela Limare Open the ORCID record for Angela Limare [Opens in a new window] ,
Claude Jaupart ,
Edouard Kaminski ,
Loic Fourel  and
Cinzia G. Farnetani
Angela Limare*
Affiliation:
Institut de Physique du Globe, Université de Paris, CNRS, F-75005 Paris, France
Claude Jaupart
Affiliation:
Institut de Physique du Globe, Université de Paris, CNRS, F-75005 Paris, France
Edouard Kaminski
Affiliation:
Institut de Physique du Globe, Université de Paris, CNRS, F-75005 Paris, France
Loic Fourel
Affiliation:
Solid Earth Geology Team, Geological Survey of Norway (NGU), Trondheim NO-7491, Norway
Cinzia G. Farnetani
Affiliation:
Institut de Physique du Globe, Université de Paris, CNRS, F-75005 Paris, France
*
†Email address for correspondence: limare@ipgp.fr
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Abstract

The Earth’s mantle is chemically heterogeneous and probably includes primordial material that has not been affected by melting and attendant depletion of heat-producing radioactive elements. One consequence is that mantle internal heat sources are not distributed uniformly. Convection induces mixing, such that the flow pattern, the heat source distribution and the thermal structure are continuously evolving. These phenomena are studied in the laboratory using a novel microwave-based experimental set-up for convection in internally heated systems. We follow the development of convection and mixing in an initially stratified fluid made of two layers with different physical properties and heat source concentrations lying above an adiabatic base. For relevance to the Earth’s mantle, the upper layer is thicker and depleted in heat sources compared to the lower one. The thermal structure tends towards that of a homogeneous fluid with a well-defined time constant that scales with $Ra_{H}^{-1/4}$, where $Ra_{H}$ is the Rayleigh–Roberts number for the homogenized fluid. We identified two convection regimes. In the dome regime, large domes of lower fluid protrude into the upper layer and remain stable for long time intervals. In the stratified regime, cusp-like upwellings develop at the edges of large basins in the lower layer. Due to mixing, the volume of lower fluid decreases to zero over a finite time. Empirical scaling laws for the duration of mixing and for the peak temperature difference between the two fluids are derived and allow extrapolation to planetary mantles.

JFM classification

Geophysical and Geological Flows: Mantle convection
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 870 , 10 July 2019 , pp. 67 - 105
Copyright
© 2019 Cambridge University Press 

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Limare et al. supplementary movie 1

Evolution of the lower layer topography in a ‘dome’ experiment (RaH=1.3 106, Bcond=0.9). Spatial dimensions are in mm.

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Limare et al. supplementary movie 2

Evolution of the lower layer topography in a ‘stratified’ experiment (RaH=5.9 105, Bcond=1.1). Spatial dimensions are in mm.

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Supplementary material: PDF

Limare et al. supplementary material

Supplementary figures and tables

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