Shaping the Mantle: The Role of the Superheated Core After Giant Impacts

TL;DR

This study uses SPH simulations to explore how a superheated core formed after giant impacts influences Earth's mantle melting and thermal evolution, revealing potential outcomes like basal melt layers or fully molten mantles.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic analysis of superheated core effects on mantle melting post-giant impact, integrating simulations with mantle-melting models to predict diverse mantle states.

Findings

Superheated cores can trigger secondary mantle melting within years.

Three main outcomes: complete melting, basal melt layer, or superplume formation.

Basal melt layers can retain thermal energy, affecting mantle evolution.

Abstract

The Moon-forming giant impact significantly influenced the initial thermal state of Earth's mantle by generating a global magma ocean, marking the onset of mantle evolution. Recent Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations indicate that such a collision would produce a superheated core, whose cooling would strongly influence subsequent mantle dynamics. Here, we present systematic SPH simulations of diverse giant-impact scenarios and show that the superheated core formed after the impact can trigger secondary mantle melting, thereby governing the final state of the magma ocean. To further quantify this effect, we employ a parameterized mantle-melting model to evaluate the influence of secondary melting on the lower mantle. Our results suggest three possible outcomes: complete mantle melting, the formation of a basal melt layer, or the initiation of an early superplume. Combined with recent two-phase magma-ocean solidification models, we infer that all three scenarios would result in basal melt layers of varying thickness, partially retaining the thermal energy of the superheated core. In the canonical Moon-forming scenario, the superheated core would rapidly transfer heat to Earth's lower mantle, causing secondary mantle melting within approximately 277--5983 years and generating either a basal melt layer or a fully molten mantle. Both outcomes would effectively erase primordial heterogeneities in the lower mantle and impose distinct pathways for its subsequent thermal evolution.