EFFECTS OF TRANSIENT UPLIFT EROSION ON THE SURFACE HEAT-FLOW AND HEAT-GENERATION RELATIONSHIP IN PRESENCE OF SMALL-SCALE ASTHENOSPHERIC CONVECTION

In this paper the effect of transient uplift/erosion on the relationsh ip between surface heat flow and heat generation for truncated exponen tial model of radiogenic heat source distribution and basal asthenosph eric convection is investigated. Asthenospberic convection is describe d by a parameterized model, in the form of a nonlinear heat flux bound ary condition involving basal temperature and mantle internal temperat ure. This boundary condition has been linearized and the analytical so lution of the problem is obtained by the eigenvalue-eigenfunction expa nsion method. The analytical solution is used to derive the nature of surface heat flow and heat generation relationship. The results show t hat the linear relationship is maintained during the uplift/erosion an d the estimates of the slope of the linear relationship are different from the depth scale of the exponential model and increase with the ra te of uplift/erosion. The estimates of the reduced heat flow also incr ease with the rate of uplift/erosion. These results would find applica tions in the interpretation of linear surface heat flow and heat gener ation relationship which is observed in different tectonic environment .