If you want to understand Earth's evolution, start with how heat is conducted in the deep lower mantle 400 to 1,800 miles below the surface.

Researchers recently did. They were able to simulate the pressure conditions in this region to measure thermal conductivity using a new measurement technique developed by the collaborators and implemented by the Carnegie team on the mantle material magnesium oxide (MgO). They found that heat transfer is lower than other predictions, with total heat flow across the Earth of about 10.4 terawatts, which is about 60 % of the power used today by civilization. They also found that conductivity has less dependence on pressure conditions than predicted. The research is published in the August 9, online Scientific Reports.

Lead author of the study Douglas Dalton of the Carnegie Institution, explains, "The lower mantle sits on top of the core where pressures range from 230,000 to 1.3 million times the pressure at sea level. Temperatures are like an inferno—from about 2,800°F to 6,700 °F. The major constituents are oxides of magnesium, silicon and calcium. Heat transfer occurs at a higher rate across materials of high thermal conductivity than across materials of low thermal conductivity, thus these low thermal conductivity oxides are insulating."

Thermal conductivity of MgO up to 60 GPa at room temperature. The open and dotted circles are our data on pressure increase for two different pressure runs; the filled circles are our data on pressure release. The inset shows the data plotted in a log-log scale; the solid curve is the linear fit. Gray thick line is the results of the DCM calculations from this work. Phenomenological predictions are shown by the long dashed line, dashed-dotted line, and short dashed line. The latter description coincides with that determined from the Leibfreid-Schlömann equation , where V is volume, ω_D is Debye frequency, γ is the Grüneisen parameter, T is temperature and A serves as a fit parameter. Credit and link: doi:10.1038/srep02400

The atoms of the major mantle materials are solid solutions and are in a disordered arrangement, which affects the way they conduct heat. Until now, the effect of this disorder on the way heat was conducted could only be estimated with experiments at low pressures. The pressure dependence on thermal conductivity has not been addressed in disordered materials before.

"We squeezed the samples between two diamond tips in an anvil cell and measured the thermal conductivity of the samples, debuting a technique called time-domain thermoreflectance," remarked co-author Alexander Goncharov. "We went up to 600,000 times atmospheric pressure at room temperature. This technique allows us to measure the thermal properties of the material from the change in the reflectance of the material's surface, thus avoiding the need of contacting the material of interest as required by conventional techniques. We then compared the results to theoretical models."

The scientists also showed that there is less dependence of thermal conductivity on pressure than had been predicted. Calculations showed that at the core-mantle boundary there is an estimated total heat flow of 10.4 terawatts across the Earth.

"The results provide important bounds on the degree to which heat is transferred by convection as opposed to conduction in the lower mantle," said Russell J. Hemley, director of Carnegie's Geophysical Laboratory. "The next step will be to examine effects of different mineral components on the thermal conductivity and to better understand the atomic scale basis of convective motion of these materials within the broader context of mantle dynamics."

"The results suggest that this technique could really advance other high pressure and temperature studies of the deep Earth and provide a better understanding of how Earth is evolving and how materials act under the intense conditions," concluded Goncharov.

Citation: Douglas Allen Dalton, Wen-Pin Hsieh, Gregory T. Hohensee, David G. Cahill and Alexander F. Goncharov, 'Effect of mass disorder on the lattice thermal conductivity of MgO periclase under pressure', Scientific Reports 3, Article number: 2400 doi:10.1038/srep02400