Skip to content
LITHOEN

Geological process

Mantle convection

Slow circulation of the solid mantle driven by internal heat, in which hot material rises and cooler, denser material sinks. The geometry of that circulation is far less well constrained than the fact of it.

How this record is known

1
Settled consensus
Cited as the accepted position of the discipline.
1
Interpretation
Reached by reasoning from evidence, or produced by a named model.
2
Open questions
Sourced statements that the answer is not currently known.

4 of 4 claims on this page cite at least one registered source. Counts describe how each statement is known, not how likely it is to be true.

What Lithoen records

Each claim states how it is known and cites its evidence.

Open question

How and why the escape of interior heat becomes concentrated in particular regions to form convection cells remains unresolved.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Kious 1996 Primary authority

EstablishedConvective transport of internal heat through the solid mantle.

Convection carries Earth’s internal heat outward: hotter, less dense material rises, spreads and cools, and cooler, denser material sinks to be reheated. Convection cannot take place without a source of heat.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Kious 1996 Primary authority

InferredVery sluggish background circulation below roughly 1,000 km depth.

The vertical orientation of the imaged conduits suggests very sluggish background circulation in the mantle below about 1,000 kilometres depth.

  • method: Inference from the vertical orientation of tomographically imaged conduits.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: French 2015 Peer-reviewed

Open question

How many convection cells exist in the mantle, where and how they originate, and what structure they take are open questions.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Kious 1996 Primary authority

In the knowledge graph

Record last updated 2026-09-06. Corrections follow the published corrections policy; superseded claims are retained, never silently edited.