Scaling of time-dependent stagnant lid convection: Application to small-scale convection on Earth and other terrestrial planets

Abstract

Small-scale convection associated with instabilities at the bottom of the lithospheric plates on the Earth and other terrestrial planets occurs in the stagnant lid regime of temperature-dependent viscosity convection. Systematic numerical simulations of time-dependent, internally heated stagnant lid convection suggest simple scaling relationships for a variety of convective parameters and in a broad range of power law viscosities. Application of these scaling relationships to the Earth's oceanic lithosphere shows that for either diffusion or dislocation viscosity of olivine, convective instabilities occur in the lower part of the lithosphere between 85 and 100 km depth (the rheological subla..