Abstract Earth is so far the only planet that exhibits plate tectonics, and along with the right heliocentric distance and the presence of surface water, plate tectonics is among necessary conditions for a habitable planet. Yet, the physics of this particular style of mantle convection is poorly understood, creating a substantial bottleneck in developing the general theory of planetary evolution. As plate tectonics is characterized by the subduction of oceanic lithosphere, a better understanding of the oceanic upper mantle could potentially help to break this stalemate. In this review, I summarize available theoretical, observational, and experimental constraints on the evolution of the oceanic upper mantle and its rheology, place the study of the oceanic upper mantle in the big picture of Earth evolution, and provide some suggestions for future research in relevant disciplines, including marine geophysics and computational geodynamics.

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板块构造和地表环境：大洋上地幔的作用

摘要 地球是迄今为止唯一表现出板块构造的行星，加上正确的日心距和地表水的存在，板块构造是宜居行星的必要条件之一。然而，人们对这种特殊类型地幔对流的物理学知之甚少，这在发展行星演化的一般理论方面造成了重大瓶颈。由于板块构造的特点是大洋岩石圈俯冲，更好地了解大洋上地幔可能有助于打破这种僵局。在这篇综述中，我总结了关于大洋上地幔演化及其流变学的现有理论、观测和实验约束，将大洋上地幔的研究置于地球演化的大局中，