GEODYNAMICS AND RATE OF VOLCANISM ON MASSIVE EARTH-LIKE PLANETS

By E. Kite, Michael Manga, E. Gaidos. 2008

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We provide estimates of volcanism versus time for planets with Earth-like composition and masses 0.25–25 M⊕, as a step toward predicting atmospheric mass on extrasolar rocky planets. Volcanism requires melting of the silicate mantle. We use a thermal evolution model, calibrated against Earth, in combination with standard melting models, to explore the dependence of convection-driven decompression mantle melting on planet mass. We show that (1) volcanism is likely to proceed on massive planets with plate tectonics over the main-sequence lifetime of the parent star; (2) crustal thickness (and melting rate normalized to planet mass) is weakly dependent on planet mass; (3) stagnant lid planets live fast (they have higher rates of melting than their plate tectonic counterparts early in their thermal evolution), but die young (melting shuts down after a few Gyr); (4) plate tectonics may not operate on high-mass planets because of the production of buoyant crust which is difficult to subduct; and (5) melting is necessary but insufficient for efficient volcanic degassing—volatiles partition into the earliest, deepest melts, which may be denser than the residue and sink to the base of the mantle on young, massive planets. Magma must also crystallize at or near the surface, and the pressure of overlying volatiles must be fairly low, if volatiles are to reach the surface. If volcanism is detected in the 10 Gyr-old τ Ceti system, and tidal forcing can be shown to be weak, this would be evidence for plate tectonics.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Geophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9d35504937612899582271665fcf3c49bfcb4fe1

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Citations in the corpus

How to Characterize Habitable Worlds and Signs of Life (2017, background): “Note, however, that synchronous rotation may not be a problem for habitability on a planet that has a substantial atmosphere, like Earth, that distributes heat evenly on its surface (see, e.g., Joshi 2003, Scalo et al. 2007, Kite et al. 2009, Edson et al. 2012).”
MOST 1.6 EARTH-RADIUS PLANETS ARE NOT ROCKY (2014, background): “Rates of volcanism per unit mass on rocky Earth-like exoplanets are not expected to exceed 10 times that of the present-day Earth (1.7 × 10−11 yr−1, Best & Christiansen 2001) for planets older than 2 Gyr (Kite et al. 2009).”
Tidal obliquity evolution of potentially habitable planets (2011, background): “The structure and cooling of Super-Earths have recently been explored in the literature (e.g. bySleep 2000; Valencia et al. 2007; O’Neill & Lenardic 2007; Kite et al. 2009; Stamenkovic et al. 2009; Plesa & Breuer 2009), but a consensus has yet to emerge.”
Mantle dynamics in super-Earths: Post-perovskite rheology and self-regulation of viscosity (2012, background): “…predicting this requires detailed 339 modelling of their evolution from a hot initial state, which has so far been done only for 340 isoviscous super-Earths (Kite et al., 2009; Papuc and Davies, 2008) – we plan in future to do 341 this for super-Earths with pressure-dependent viscosity.”
THREE POSSIBLE ORIGINS FOR THE GAS LAYER ON GJ 1214b (2009, background): “Recent outgassing by geological activity could be revealed through the detection of spectral features from species with short photochemical lifetimes such as SO2 (Kite et al. 2009).”
WATER LOSS FROM TERRESTRIAL PLANETS WITH CO2-RICH ATMOSPHERES (2013, unknown): “Depending on the efﬁciency of processes that partition water between the surface and mantle, many such planets would then be expected to have deep oceans, with little or no rock exposed to the atmosphere (Kite et al. 2009; Elkins-Tanton 2011).”