Porous Melt Flow in Continental Crust—A Numerical Modeling Study

Abstract

In continental crust, rapid melt flow through macroscopic conduits is usually envisaged as the most efficient form of melt transport. In contrast, there is growing evidence that in hot continental crust, grain‐scale to meso‐scale porous melt flow may operate over long distances and over millions of years. Here we investigate the dynamics of such porous melt flow by means of two‐dimensional thermo‐mechanical numerical models using the code ASPECT. Our models are crustal‐scale and describe the network of pores through which the melt flows by permeability that depends on the spacing of the pores. Our results suggest that assuming realistic material properties, melt can slowly migrate in hot and thick continental crust through pores with a characteristic spacing of one millimeter or larger. Despite its low velocity (millimeters to centimeters per year), over millions of years, such flow can create large partially‐molten zones in the middle‐lower crust and significantly affect its thermal state, deformation and composition. We examined the role of the permeability, melt and solid viscosities, the slope of the melting curve and temperature conditions. We obtained contrasting styles of melt distribution, melt flow and solid deformation, which can be categorized as melt‐enhanced convection, growth of partially‐molten diapirs and melt percolation in porosity waves. Our numerical experiments further indicate that grain‐scale porous flow is more likely in rocks where the melt productivity increases slowly with temperature, such as in metaigneous rocks.