Inevitability of Plate Tectonics on Super-Earths

By D. Valencia, R. O’Connell, D. Sasselov. 2007

238 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The recent discovery of super-Earths (masses ≤10 M⊕) has initiated a discussion about conditions for habitable worlds. Among these is the mode of convection, which influences a planet's thermal evolution and surface conditions. On Earth, plate tectonics has been proposed as a necessary condition for life. Here we show that super-Earths will also have plate tectonics. We demonstrate that as planetary mass increases, the shear stress available to overcome resistance to plate motion increases while the plate thickness decreases, thereby enhancing plate weakness. These effects contribute favorably to the subduction of the lithosphere, an essential component of plate tectonics. Moreover, uncertainties in achieving plate tectonics in the 1 M⊕ regime disappear as mass increases: super-Earths, even if dry, will exhibit plate tectonic behavior.

Subfields: Geophysics, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dde6c761cf0a9c9da4d95eeb30f3f7241eebf27b

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Citations in the corpus

THE COMPOSITIONAL DIVERSITY OF EXTRASOLAR TERRESTRIAL PLANETS. I. IN SITU SIMULATIONS (2010, background): “These results are also key for super Earth studies such as that of Valencia et al. (2007) and O’Neill et al. (2007).”
Can we constrain the interior structure of rocky exoplanets from mass and radius measurements (2015, background): “For example, Valencia et al. (2006, 2007c); Sotin et al. (2007); Wagner et al. (2011) it has been shown that different core sizes and mantle compositions affect the mass-radius relationship, but to our knowledge no comprehensive study of the degeneracy of these model parameters has been performed.”
Mantle dynamics in super-Earths: Post-perovskite rheology and self-regulation of viscosity (2012, background): “This is consistent with predictions 566 from parameterised (Valencia and O'Connell, 2009; Valencia et al., 2007a) and simplified 567 numerical (Korenaga, 2010a; van Heck and Tackley, 2011) studies.”
What makes a planet habitable? (2009, background): “tectonics similar to the Earth? One factor might be the high surface temperature which weakens the heat flow and slows down the convection (Valencia et al. 2007).”
Habitability from Tidally Induced Tectonics (2018, background): “With some suggesting it is possible (Valencia et al. 2007; van Heck & Tackley 2011; Foley et al. 2012; Korenaga 2010; Tackley et al. 2013), while others consider it to be unlikely (O’Neill et al. 2007; Stamenković et al. 2012; Noack & Breuer 2014).”
Tidal Heating of Extrasolar Planets (2008, background): “To put these numbers in context, consider the geophysical modeling of this planet by Valencia et al. (2007b), who report that 7 ; 1017 Wwould be adequate to induce substantial internal melting of the mantle.”
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.”
A POSSIBLE CARBON-RICH INTERIOR IN SUPER-EARTH 55 Cancri e (2012, methodology): “The high thermal conductivities, compounded with the paucity of water, may influence the likelihood of plate tectonics in carbon-rich super-Earths (Valencia et al. 2007; Korenaga 2010), though new measurements of viscosity of carbon-rich materials at high pressures and high temperatures are…”
Plate tectonics on super-Earths: Equally or more likely than on Earth (2011, methodology): “Here, for comparison with Valencia et al. (2007) and Valencia and O'Connell (2009), we consider the effect on the scalings of an increase in mean density with planet size.”
How to Characterize Habitable Worlds and Signs of Life (2017, background): “…in the literature addresses how the interiors of such worlds might work, regarding the ability to cycle gases from the rocky core to the atmosphere (Valencia et al. 2007, Grasset et al. 2009, Fu et al. 2010, Rogers & Seager 2010, Kaltenegger et al. 2013, Tackley et al. 2013, Levi et al. 2013,…”
WATER LOSS FROM TERRESTRIAL PLANETS WITH CO2-RICH ATMOSPHERES (2013, unknown): “Some studies have argued that plate tectonics becomes inevitable as a planet’s mass increase, suggesting that in many cases the cycling of CO 2 between the crust and mantle, and hence temperature regulation, will be efﬁcient (Valencia et al. 2007).”
GEODYNAMICS AND RATE OF VOLCANISM ON MASSIVE EARTH-LIKE PLANETS (2008, background): “Instead, we analyze five possible volcanism-related limits to plate tectonics, tracing the consequences in more detail than the short paper of (Valencia et al. 2007).”
Mechanisms for the generation of plate tectonics by two-phase grain-damage and pinning (2012, background): “Of course the only readily available observation of terrestrial exo-planets is their mass, which has caused some debate as to whether size is more or less conducive to plate tectonics (Valencia et al., 2007; Valencia and O’Connell, 2009; O’Neill and Lenardic, 2007), although recent studies suggest t”