Evolving morphology of thermochemical piles caused by accumulation of subducted oceanic crust

Abstract:

Seismic tomography results have shown two large low shear velocity provinces (LLSVPs) in the lowermost mantle beneath Africa and Pacific. The LLSVPs have been hypothesized to be caused by large-scale compositional heterogeneity. Two hypotheses have been proposed for the origin of this compositional heterogeneity: (1) primordial material formed during Earth’s early differentiation, and (2) accumulations of subducted oceanic crust on the core-mantle boundary (CMB). Previous geodynamical calculations often show that stable thermochemical piles caused by primordial material have sharp boundaries. So, if the accumulation of subducted oceanic crust has different morphology than that of piles caused by primordial material, we may be able to constrain the origin of compositional heterogeneity from high resolution seismic observations of the boundaries of LLSVPs.

Here, we performed geodynamic calculations to investigate the morphology of accumulation of subducted oceanic crust on the CMB. We found that the ability of subducted oceanic crust to accumulate on the CMB and the sharpness of the boundaries of the accumulations both strongly depends on the crustal thickness. A thick (e.g., ~30 km) oceanic crust produced from the early hot mantle can form into large-scale accumulations on the CMB, but with fuzzy and diffuse top boundaries. However, as the oceanic crust becomes thinner, it becomes more difficult to accumulate on the CMB, and the top boundaries of the accumulations of subducted oceanic crust also gradually become sharp, more like that of piles caused by primordial material. Thus, a sharp top boundaries of LLSVPs in the present-day Earth does not guarantee that they are caused by piles of primordial material. In addition, as the oceanic crust becomes thinner, more subducted oceanic crust is entrained and recycled to shallow depth, which may have important implications for geochemical observations on Earth’s surface.