GD
Geodynamics

mantle convection

Journey Towards the Centre of the Earth: The Secret Behind the Long-Term Survival of Large Low-Velocity Provinces

October 8, 2025
Journey Towards the Centre of the Earth: The Secret Behind the Long-Term Survival of Large Low-Velocity Provinces

Geophysicists have long been intrigued by the enigmatic “blobs” residing deep within Earth’s lower mantle — the Large Low-Velocity Provinces (LLVPs). Ever wondered what keeps these gigantic thermochemical structures surviving for billions of years despite the mantle’s vigorous convection? In this week’s News & Views, Prachi Kar, a PhD candidate from Arizona State University, delves into Earth’ ...[Read More]

Phase transitions control plume layering during Earth’s secular cooling

and August 20, 2025
Phase transitions control plume layering during Earth’s secular cooling
Figure 1: A schematic summary. Time evolving in a clockwise direction. The dashed line marks a depth of 500 km, and the dotted shading indicates the pressure–temperature range where the wadsleyite ⇔ garnet (majorite) + ferropericlase phase transformation occurs. Purple shading marks areas of partial melting. The timeline calculation assumes a mantle potential temperature of 1900 K at ~3 Ga, cooling by about 100 K per Gyr.

  Earth’s structure and dynamics have evolved quite a lot since its formation, and so has mantle dynamics and convection patterns changed along with it. It turns out that phase transition in certain mantle minerals can be an important driver of this change. Today, Ranpeng Li from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany explains how coupling geodynamic models with thermodynami ...[Read More]

A journey to the centre of plate tectonics and mantle convection

and September 4, 2024
A journey to the centre of plate tectonics and mantle convection
This graphic by Fabio Crameri is adjusted from Crameri et al. (2019) is available via the open-access s-Ink repository.

“Dynamics of Plate Tectonics and Mantle Convection,” is edited by Dr. João C. Duarte and published by Elsevier. The book brings together contributions from more than 40 renowned authors in the fields of geology, geodynamics, tectonics, petrology and geophysics. It offers the unique authors’ perspective on the interconnected processes of plate tectonics and mantle convection and their v ...[Read More]

Regional viscosity variations in Earth’s mantle

and February 28, 2024
Regional viscosity variations in Earth’s mantle

For understanding the dynamics and evolution of the Earth’s mantle, knowledge of mantle’s viscosity structure is very important. In this week’s blog, Kenneth Gourley from University of Arizona discusses the variation of viscosity structure in Earth’s mantle in regional scale.   In order to understand the dynamics and evolution of the Earth’s mantle, geodynamicists model mantle fl ...[Read More]