Abstract
According to modern geophysical ideas [1], the oceanic crust is formed when the lithospheric plates move apart in the axial regions of the rift zones of the Earth due to the penetration of molten matter from the asthenosphere into cracks and pores of the lithosphere and the subsequent solidification of this matter (the lithosphere and asthenosphere are the upper layers of the Earth). In these regions, which have a width of the order of several tens of kilometers, the liquid magmatic material penetrates the crystalline skeleton of the crust, which means that one must regard this region as a saturated fissured and porous deformable medium that permits phase transitions between the skeleton and the liquid filler. Geophysical data indicate that there is a similar two-phase fissured and porous structure of the medium in the asthenosphere (at least in certain regions) and in regions of high tectonic and volcanic activity. Because geological processes take place slowly, it can be assumed that the skeleton of the two-phase medium is deformed as a strongly viscous incompressible Newtonian liquid with a viscosity much greater than the viscosity of the filler.
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Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 6, pp. 53–63, November–December, 1979.
We thank V. P. Myasnikov and V. N. Nikolaevskii for helpful discussion of the present work.
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Karakin, A.V., Lobkovskii, L.I. Mechanics of a porous two-phase strongly viscous medium and some geophysical applications. Fluid Dyn 14, 853–862 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01051987
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01051987