Abstract The role of heat flow coming from the core is often overlooked or underestimated in simple models of Earth's thermal evolution. Throughout most of Earth's history, the mantle must have been extracting from the core at least the amount of heat that is required to operate the geodynamo. In view of recent laboratory measurements and theoretical calculations indicating a higher thermal conductivity of iron than previously thought, the above constraint has important implications for the thermal history of the Earth's mantle. In this work we construct a paramaterized mantle convection model that treats both the top and the core-mantle boundary heat fluxes according to the boundary layer theory, or alternatively employs the model of Labrosse (2015) to compute the thermal evolution of the Earth's core. We show that the core is likely to provide all the missing heat that is necessary in order to avoid the so-called “thermal catastrophe” of the mantle. Moreover, by analyzing the mutual feedback between the core and the mantle, we provide the necessary ingredients for obtaining thermal histories that are consistent with the petrological record and have reasonable initial conditions. These include a sufficiently high viscosity contrast between the lower and upper mantle, whose exact value is sensitive to the activation energy that governs the temperature dependence of the viscosity.

中文翻译：

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来自地核的最小热流和地球的热演化

摘要 在地球热演化的简单模型中，来自地核的热流的作用常常被忽视或低估。在地球历史的大部分时间里，地幔必须至少从地核提取运行地球发电机所需的热量。鉴于最近的实验室测量和理论计算表明铁的热导率比以前认为的要高，上述限制对地幔的热历史具有重要意义。在这项工作中，我们构建了一个参数化的地幔对流模型，根据边界层理论处理顶部和核-地幔边界热通量，或者使用 Labrosse (2015) 的模型来计算地核的热演化。我们表明，地核可能会提供所有必要的热量，以避免所谓的地幔“热灾难”。此外，通过分析地核和地幔之间的相互反馈，我们为获得与岩石记录一致且具有合理初始条件的热史提供了必要的成分。这些包括下地幔和上地幔之间足够高的粘度对比度，其确切值对控制粘度的温度依赖性的活化能敏感。我们为获得与岩石学记录一致并具有合理初始条件的热历史提供必要的成分。这些包括下地幔和上地幔之间足够高的粘度对比度，其确切值对控制粘度的温度依赖性的活化能敏感。我们为获得与岩石学记录一致并具有合理初始条件的热历史提供必要的成分。这些包括下地幔和上地幔之间足够高的粘度对比度，其确切值对控制粘度的温度依赖性的活化能敏感。