Why Earth’s Oceanic Plates Suddenly Stop

Earth's mantle (dark red) lies below the crust (brown layer near the surface) and above the outer core (bright red). (Image: Argonne National Laboratory via Flickr)

In a study published in Nature Geoscience, the team explored the physics of “stagnant slabs.” These geophysical oddities form when huge chunks of Earth’s oceanic plates are forced deep underground at the edges of certain continental plates. The chunks sink down into the planet’s interior for hundreds of miles until they suddenly — and for reasons scientists can’t explain — stop like a stalled car.

Researchers at CU Boulder report that they may have solved a geophysical mystery, pinning down the likely cause of a phenomenon that resembles a wrench in the engine of the planet.

CU Boulder’s Wei Mao and Shijie Zhong, however, may have found the reason for that halt. Using computer simulations, the researchers examined a series of stagnant slabs in the Pacific Ocean near Japan and the Philippines.

They discovered that these cold rocks seem to be sliding on a thin layer of weak material lying at the boundary of the planet’s upper and lower mantle — roughly 660 kilometers, or 410 miles, below the surface. And the stoppage is likely temporary, Zhong, a co-author of the new study and a professor in CU Boulder’s Department of Physics, said:

Oceanic plates going stagnant

The findings matter for tectonics and volcanism on the Earth’s surface. Zhong explained that the planet’s mantle, which lies above the core, generates vast amounts of heat. To cool the globe down, hotter rocks rise up through the mantle and colder rocks sink, Zhong said:

The existence of stagnant slabs, which geophysicists first located about a decade ago, however, complicates that metaphor, suggesting that Earth’s engine may grind to a halt in some areas. That, in turn, may change how scientists think diverse features, such as East Asia’s roiling volcanos, form over geologic time.

Scientists have mostly located such slabs in the western Pacific Ocean, specifically off the east coast of Japan and deep below the Mariana Trench. They occur at the sites of subduction zones, or areas where oceanic plates at the surface of the planet plunge hundreds of miles below ground.

Graphic of oceanic plates under the Japanese island of Honshu (top) and the Mariana Trench (bottom) using seismic data (left) and computer simulations (right). Stagnant slabs (blue) plunge down to the border between the upper and lower mantle then screech to a stop.
Graphic of stagnant slabs under the Japanese island of Honshu (top) and the Mariana Trench (bottom) using seismic data (left) and computer simulations (right). Stagnant slabs (blue) plunge down to the border between the upper and lower mantle and then screech to a stop. (Image: Mao & Zhong 2018 via Nature Geoscience)

Slabs seen at similar sites near North and South America behave in ways that geophysicists might expect: They dive through Earth’s upper mantle and into the lower mantle where they heat up near the core.

But around Asia, “they simply don’t go down,” Zhong said. Instead, the oceanic plates spread out horizontally near the boundary between the upper and lower mantle, a point at which heat and pressure inside Earth cause minerals to change from one phase to another.

Slab sliding

To find out why oceanic plates go stagnant, Zhong and Mao, a graduate student in physics, developed realistic simulations of how energy and rock cycle around the entire planet. They found that the only way they could explain the behavior of the stagnant slabs was if a thin layer of less-viscous rock was wedged in between the two halves of the mantle.

While no one has directly observed such a layer, researchers have predicted that it exists by studying the effects of heat and pressure on rock. If it does, such a layer would act like a greasy puddle in the middle of the planet, Zhong explained:

Stagnant oceanic plates seem to occur off the coast of Asia, but not the Americas, because the movement of the continents above gives those chunks of rock more room to slide. Zhong, however, said that he doesn’t think the slabs will stay stuck. With enough time, he suspects that they will break through the slick part of the mantle and continue their plunge toward the planet’s core.

The planet, in other words, would still behave like an engine — just with a few sticky spots. Zhong ended with:

Provided by: Daniel Strain, University of Colorado at Boulder [Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.]

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