Creeping plumes

Abstract

Results of laboratory experiments are used to determine the morphology and the ascent rate of growing buoyant plumes in a homogeneous, viscous fluid. The plumes were formed by injecting a glucose solution through a small orifice into another glucose solution of different density. Two classes of creeping (low-Reynolds-number) plumes are investigated: (i) diapiric plumes, for which the plume viscosity is approximately equal to the ambient-fluid viscosity, and (ii) cavity plumes, for which the plume fluid is much less viscous than the ambient fluid. Fully developed diapirs consist of a tapered cylindrical stem capped by a mushroom-shaped vortex at its leading edge. Fully developed cavity plumes consist of a nearly spherical chamber connected to the source by a narrow umbilical conduit. It is observed that the ascent velocity of cavity plumes increases with time as t⅖. The ascent velocity of diapirs is found to be proportional to the terminal velocity of a cylinder moving parallel to its axis. The presence of pre-existing conduits alters the morphology of cavity plumes and greatly increases their ascent rate. Fossil conduits act as plume guides by offering low-resistance ascent paths. Finally, a series of experiments have been made on the interaction between cavity plumes and a large-scale background circulation. A low-viscosity plume generated by a source towed steadily through a highly viscous fluid breaks into a chain of regularly spaced, individual cavities, as first demonstrated by Skilbeck & Whitehead. The cavities ascend as an inclined linear array of Stokes droplets. Dimensional analysis is used to derive scaling laws for the cavity volumes and their replication rate in terms of the source parameters and the tow speed. The qualitative results from these experiments generally lend support to the hypothesis that buoyant plumes in the Earth's mantle are the source of hot-spot volcanism. In particular the experiments suggest an explanation for the observation that hot spots remain nearly fixed in the presence of mantle convection.