Coupling Stokes and Darcy Flow in Melt Migration Modelling

Abstract:

Melt migration can be modelled by coupling variable-viscosity Stokes flow and Darcy flow. Stokes Flow, generally, captures the long-term behavior of the mantle and lithosphere while Darcy flow models the two-phase regime.

The major unknowns of the coupled system are solid velocity, fluid pressure and compaction pressure, captured in the so-called three-field formulation of the system. The fluid velocity can be computed in a post-processing step.

We present lithosperic-scale results of the fully-coupled system with visco-elasto-plastic rheologies. This comprises elasto-plastic effects from shearing (Mode II) as well as poro-elastic effects and “opening mode” (Mode I) tensile plasticity. The system is solved using the Finite Element Method on triangular or quadrilateral grids in the Matlab-based code MVEP. Triangular meshes are adapted dynamically to better resolve the different deformation modes (diapiric, channeling, diking).