Overheated Earth Would Lock Into Place

May 19, 2008 -- Dramatic changes to the temperature of Earth's atmosphere could cause the planet's crust to become locked in place, research shows.

The Earth's crust is like a jigsaw of free-floating, rocky plates. Below those plates is a deep layer of flowing rock called the mantle, whose movements cause the plates to move slowly around.

Louis Moresi of Australia's Monash University and colleagues wanted to better understand how atmospheric temperature might affect the characteristics of the mantle.

Their results appear in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Using a combination of mathematical simulations and theory they found that if the Earth's surface temperature rose by around 100°C and stayed that way for a few million years, the mantle could become less viscous and stop moving the tectonic plates around.

"In practical terms, if you took the Earth and heated it up by 100°C then it would potentially make it very hard for these internal forces to break up the plates," Moresi said.