On the transient nature of mantle plumes

We present new experiments focussing on the transient behaviour of thermal plumes. In a fluid heated from below, plumes develop once the hot thermal boundary layer (TBL) reaches a critical thickness (Howard, 1964). They rise through the fluid owing to their thermal buoyancy and comprise TBL material which empties itself into the plumes. As the TBL becomes exhausted, plumes start disappearing from the bottom up, sometimes even before reaching the upper boundary, depending on the convection intensity. Then, they finally fade away by thermal diffusion. This sequence of events shows that time-dependence is a key-factor when interpreting present-day tomographic images of mantle upwellings. In particular, it could be erroneous to identify the depth of a present-day slow seismic anomaly with the depth of its origin, or to interpret the absence of a long tail as the absence of a plume.