S U M M A R Y An assumption of isothermal and static asthenosphere as the normal state of sublithospheric mantle, as commonly employed in studies of terrestrial magmatism, may be physically implausible for a system cooled from above. The growth of an unstable thermal boundary layer at the base of the lithosphere can lead to small-scale convection, so asthenosphere is expected to be usually conv...

Derived values of the thickness of the effective elastic lithosphere on Mars are converted to estimates of lithospheric thermal gradients and surface heat flow by finding the thickness of the elastic-plastic plate having the same bending moment and curvature, subject o assumed strain rates and temperature-dependent flow laws for crustal and mantle matedhal. Local thermal gradients and heat flow...

The global contiguity of life on the Earth today is a result of the high flux of carbon and oxygen from oxygenic photosynthesis over the planetary surface and its use in aerobic respiration. Life's ability to directly use redox couples from components of the planetary lithosphere in a pre-oxygenic photosynthetic world can be investigated by studying the distribution of organisms that use energy...

The style and evolution of tectonics on the terrestrial planets differ substantially. The style is related to the thickness of the lithosphere and to whether the lithosphere is divided into distinct, mobile plates that can be recycled into the mantle, as on Earth, or is a single spherical shell, as on the moon, Mars, and Mercury. The evolution of a planetary lithosphere and the development of p...

[1] While several mechanisms have been suggested to explain the evolution of the Tibetan Plateau, observational constraints on the deep lithospheric processes have been sparse, and previous seismic studies were mostly along profiles perpendicular to the collision front of the Indian and Eurasian plates. In this study, we show tomographic evidence for the delamination of the mantle lithosphere b...

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Keywords: receiver functions lithosphere lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary mid-lithospheric discontinuity To explore how lithospheric structure varies between tectonic and magmatic terranes of the western United States, we use observations of shear-to-compressional wave conversions across lithospheric velocity interfaces. With a newly developed automatic m...

Plate tectonics is the horizontal motion of Earth’s thermal boundary layer (lithosphere) over the convecting mantle (asthenosphere) and is mostly driven by lithosphere sinking in subduction zones. Plate tectonics is an outstanding example of a self organizing, far from equilibrium complex system (SOFFECS), driven by the negative buoyancy of the thermal boundary layer and controlled by dissipati...

Crustal plateaus and volcanic rises, major physiographic features on Venus, both formed over mantle plumes. Crustal plateaus were produced by large degrees of plume melting beneath thin lithosphere. The oldest tectonic features in crustal plateaus are ribbon-like troughs indicating early uplift and tensile stretching; their shallow depths suggest that surface temperature there was higher in the...