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Drawing the Earth with its layers in correct proportions:

Inner core, outer core, Gutenberg layer, 410 km discontinuity, 250 km discontinuity, tectonic plate bottom line at 120 km depth, surface with radius 6371 km.

Six currents added to outer core, with equal hight and bredth. It coincides with the outer limits of the Gutenberg layer.

Convection rolls sections added with same hight and bredth to the lower mantle. They coincide with the lower limits of Gutenberg layer and 410 km depth from surface.

The convection rolls sections are further identified with vertical lines where they are divided from each other.

The remaining layers are filled with convection roll sections of identical height and breadth, thereby completing this section of the convection roll model.

According to the details of transition layer, 410-670 km, and division of the lower mantle, this picture does emerge:

This is how it works 🙂

Then this is traced to the north and south, and finally compared with the surface and our general knowlede about the Earth, based on measurements, physics and calculations.

The Reykjanes Ridge is like a long mountain on the sea bottom. It is obviously being pulled to east and west, so convection rolls must be at its sides. The shape can be traced in a mathematical way, and drawn like that:

Everyone can trace this and compare with a map, for instance on Google Map, that the red line exactly shows the location of the top of the Reykjanes Ridge. The convection roll between the black line and the red pulls to the east, the other roll pulls to the west.

To make the drawing less confusing, let us omit lower rolls, showing clearly the small rolls shaping the Reykjanes Ridge:

Actually, the main division line of large mantle cells (black line) is not below the Reykjanes Ridge, because the small convection rolls under the tectonic plate at that location are convergent. The divergent convection rolls at the two sides create the Reykjanes Ridge, and then north of 64°N the EVZ appears.

In this way, the tectonics can be understood quickly by comparing to the convection rolls.

Still, in this way you do not have the whole story. Of course, there are more chapters that have to be learned to further analyzing the various complications of relationship between tectonics and mantle currents. This is a section of one chapter out of many 🙂

Lava temperature can be around 1250°C on the surface, and just below the tectonic plates around 1500°C. One question is how lava makes its way to the surface? Another is how it can flow as far as it does. The example down below is 140 km. How can that happen?

This sign is found in the town of Stokkseyri at the south coast of Iceland.

So where does the lava come from? It is originated from the most active rift zone of Iceland, close to where we locate the hot spot. The lava is actually from the volcanic system  Bárðarbunga within the hot spot area.

This drawing shows the location of the eruption, right within the main volcanic zone oriented NW-SE. Huge dykes are ofthen created when eruptions like this one occurs, due to the tectonic drift, as the dykes fill up the faults as the land is being pulled apart.

 

 

Big convection rolls obviously shape the Atlantic Ocean from underneath. Smaller convection rolls are responsible for marking the details of volcanic zones in Iceland. The upper most convection rolls are found side by side as this drawing shows:

The resemblance to this map is quite obvious, as the darkened areas show volcanic zones. The volcanic zones abbrevieated as WVZ and EVZ fit perfectly, along with CVZ and by referring to other convection layers the NVZ and SVZ along with ÖVZ can be explained. Each convection roll spans 1.5° from east to west, swaying according to calculation under the country. The rolls can not be straight, due to the rotation of the Earth and the fact that the mantle is flowing. This layer in particular has a horizontal flow component to the south, swaying slightly to the right as all moving particles have to do on or inside the rotating Earth.

At the library of Hveragerði, there is a window on the floor through which you can look into an earthquake crack. I got allowed to put my exhibition on the top of this window.

A model showing the mantle currents under Iceland at 64°N

 

A model in the corner for explainging the South Iceland Seismic Zone.