Abstract
The observed plate velocities contain two types of motions. The poloidal component is related to the formation of ridges and subduction zones and the toroidal field expresses the shearing of surface plates. One very important consideration in modeling flow in the earth’s mantle is the existence and motion of the lithospheric plates. The motion of plates represents a large-scale circulation with strong viscous coupling to the mantle underneath. The mantle flow probably is neither a purely free convection driven by buoyancy forces due to nonadiabatic temperature gradients in the mantle nor a forced convection generated by boundary forces, but a mixed convection that combines the effects of boundary and buoyancy forces. We present, in this paper, the mixed convection model resulting in a surface velocity field that contains both the observed poloidal and toroidal components.
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© 1996 Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel
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Ye, ZR., Zhang, XW., Teng, CK. (1996). Mantle Flow with Existence of Plates and Generation of the Toroidal Field. In: Wang, R., Aki, K. (eds) Mechanics Problems in Geodynamics Part II. Pageoph Topical Volumes. Birkhäuser Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-9200-1_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-9200-1_9
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