Atmospheric influence on lithosphere formation during cooling of a global magma ocean 

Influencia atmosférica en la formación de la litosfera durante el enfriamiento de un océano magmático global  

Miguel Ángel Carapia-Pérez1,*, Edgardo Cañón-Tapia1 

1 División de Ciencias de la Tierra, Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada, Carretera Ensenada,Tijuana No. 3918, Zona Playitas, CP. 22860, Ensenada, B.C. México.

Corresponding author: (M.A. Carapia Pérez) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.   

How to cite this article:

Carapia-Pérez, M.A., Cañon-Tapia, E., 2025, Atmospheric influence on lithosphere formation during cooling of a global magma ocean: Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, 77(1), A021124. http://dx.doi.org/10.18268/BSGM2025v77n1a021124    

Manuscript received: April 9, 2024; Corrected manuscript received: September 10, 2024; Manuscript accepted: September 13, 2024 

ABSTRACT

The history of the cooling and solidification of the magma ocean produced after the large Moon-forming impact on Earth remains ill-constrained. The most commonly accepted scenario invokes a greenhouse effect of the atmosphere preventing the formation of a solid lithosphere before the complete solidification of the magma ocean from below. In this work we reexamine the cooling history of the planet after the impact, solving the 1D heat diffusion equation in spherical coordinates using the pdepe solver of Matlab for different atmospheric conditions that are compatible with a large impact event. Lithosphere formation is constrained by the time it takes for the atmosphere to drop below 1400°K when the conditions are adequate for solidifying a peridotite melt. Our results indicate that the Earth could have had a different thermal evolution than what has been commonly considered until now in most models of Earth’s evolution.

Keywords: magma ocean, thermal model, atmosphere, early Earth.