Total number of participants: 16
Number of different nationalities represented: 5
Total number of speakers: 1
Total number of talks: 1

Mass anomalies in the Earth's mantle are a key factor in linking deep Earth and shallow processes, because they initiate up- and downwelling flow and thereby elevate or depress the surface over extended regions for prolonged periods of time. To trace, quantify and forecast topography evolution in response to deep-seated solid-Earth processes, it is essential to combine detailed mass budget considerations of the mantle with the dynamic considerations embedded in modern global models of the mantle circulation. There exists well-known a-priori information on the mass budget of the mantle in the form of density models derived from histories of subduction. Here we report on a simple approach to quantify the thermally induced mantle density structure from a history of plate motion assimilated in global mantle circulation models. Key advances to the dynamic model include (1) a thermodynamically self-consistent formulation of the mantle mineralogy and (2) a very high numerical resolution sufficient to resolve (for the first time) global mantle flow at Earthlike convective vigour. The latter is needed to resolve thermal boundary layers at the appropriate time- and length-scales. We apply our model to gain better insight on the impact of hot thermal upwellings on the mantle density budget, which is important because recent geodynamic studies have favoured a larger heat flux across the core-mantle boundary than prior estimates. We test the sensitivity of mantle density models to a range of core heat flux values.

The talk will address the underlying fluid dynamics model and high-performance issues.