Self-Consistent Thermal Model of the Subcontinental Mantle

摘要

The nature of the thermal regime of the continental lithosphere and underlying mantle is an important but still unresolved issue in geodynamics. It is believed that thermal state of stable zones beneath continents of more than 500 Ma in age is close to stationary. Their thermal regime is traditionally modeled by solution of a one-dimensional equation of thermal conductivity in the lithosphere, with regional data on the surface heat flux and on the concentration of radioactive heat sources applied [1—3]. The thermal influence of the mantle on the lithosphere is taken into account only semi-empirically, through the so-called reduced heat flux.