A numerical experiment on outgassing of CO2 and water from the
convecting mantle of Mars
Abstract
To simulate the outgassing of CO2 and water from Martian mantle, I used
a two-dimensional numerical model of magmatism in the convecting mantle.
The mantle is internally heated by incompatible heat-producing elements
(HPEs) that decay with time. Mantle convection is driven by thermal,
compositional, and melt-buoyancy. Mantle convection causes magmatism,
that is, a decompression melting of upwelling mantle materials and
upward permeable flow of the generated basaltic magma through the
convecting mantle. Water is incompatible and concentrates to magma in a
partially molten region, while there is a saturation limit for CO2 in
magma that depends on the oxygen fugacity. Water and CO2 in magma are
transported upward to the surface by migrating magma and are outgassed
to the atmosphere when they ascend to the top of the mantle. Both water
and CO2 reduces the solidus temperature and the viscosity of solid
mantle materials. The calculated mantle evolves in four stages: in Stage
I, an extensive magmatism forms the crust and compositionally
differentiates the mantle; in Stage II, the resulting compositional
stratification of the mantle suppresses magmatism and mantle convection
for tens to hundreds of millions of years to allow heat to build up in
the deep mantle; in Stage III, magma is generated at depth, and the
buoyancy of generated magma induces plumes that ascend through the
stratified mantle to cause an episodic magmatism; in Stage IV, the
magmatism subsides due to extraction of HPEs from the mantle by the
magmatism itself. The episodic magmatism in Stage III outgasses water
and CO2. The total amount of outgassed water is typically 100-200 m GEL
(global equivalent layer), while that of outgassed CO2 is around 105 Pa
s or less, when the oxygen fugacity of the mantle is in the range of
Iron-Wustite (IW) buffer to one log-unit higher. This amount of CO2 is
not large enough to account for the clement surface environment of early
Mars by itself even when H2O enhances the greenhouse effect of CO2.
Other greenhouse gasses or a remnant of the CO2 that was supplied at the
time of planetary formation may have played an important role in
realizing the surface environment of early Mars that was favorable to
life.