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Science 19 March 1999:
Vol. 283. no. 5409, pp. 1885 - 1888
DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5409.1885
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Reports

Compositional Heterogeneity in the Bottom 1000 Kilometers of Earth's Mantle: Toward a Hybrid Convection Model

Rob D. van der Hilst, * Hrafnkell Kárason

Tomographic imaging indicates that slabs of subducted lithosphere can sink deep into Earth's lower mantle. The view that convective flow is stratified at 660-kilometer depth and preserves a relatively pristine lower mantle is therefore not tenable. However, a range of geophysical evidence indicates that compositionally distinct, hence convectively isolated, mantle domains may exist in the bottom 1000 kilometers of the mantle. Survival of these domains, which are perhaps related to local iron enrichment and silicate-to-oxide transformations, implies that mantle convection is more complex than envisaged by conventional end-member flow models.

Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: hilst{at}mit.edu

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