Abstract
Recent work1,2 on phase equilibria has shown that subducted oceanic lithosphere, which is differentiated into a basaltic crust and a harzburgitic residue layer, could be significantly denser than undifferentiated peridotite at depths between 650 and 700 km, but would be less dense in the range 700-740 km. It might thus be trapped in a gravitational!) stable layer between upper and lower mantle3. Here, using numerical experiments of isoviscous convec-tion, I explore the stability of such a layer, assuming that it had previously been formed. The results suggest that the survival of the intermediate layer is at best marginally feasible, provided that new subducted lithosphere is efficiently trapped.
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Christensen, U. Is subducted lithosphere trapped at the 670-km discontinuity?. Nature 336, 462–463 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/336462a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/336462a0
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