Fig. 5: Analytical and numerical models of progressive lithosphere dripping.
From: Basin record of a Miocene lithosphere drip beneath the Colorado Plateau
a Time slices of a finite-element numerical model showing the state of stress in the mantle lithosphere (ML) in response to a series of adjacent drips; white bars indicate direction of principal stress σ1; colored arrows are flow vectors, scaled in size to strain rate; color of background indicates the deviatoric component of the stress tensor that is in the y direction in the y = 0 plane (i.e. σyy)74; potential melt areas are indicated by yellow to orange contours of temperature relative to a reference hydrous peridotite solidus of 0.1 bulk wt% H2O; Insets show the approximately sinusoidal variation of σyy values along the x-axis at the top of each figure; Annotations of the last time slice are interpretations of how the model corresponds to the lithosphere-scale cross section in Fig. 4; b amplitude of sinusoidal stress required to deflect an elastic plate by 80 ± 30 m for wavelengths (λ) of 150−300 km, given the flexural rigidity of the Colorado Plateau, compared to the predicted range of stress from the numerical model in a; c schematic timelines showing maximum melt potential (T - Tsol), maximum strain rate, and σyy above the drip at each timestep of the model in a, with the four points annotated on each curve corresponding to the values of the respective parameter at the annotated locations in the first four time frames of a. Striped purple bar indicates earliest potential for initial melt and blue bar indicates timing of maximum subsidence.
