¹Cyril Sturtz,¹Angela Limare,¹Stephen Tait,¹Édouard Kaminski
Journal of Geophysical Research (Planets) (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JE007020]
¹Université Paris Cité, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, CNRS, Paris, F-75005 France
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

This is the second of two companion papers that present a theoretical and experimental study of the thermal history of planetesimals in which heating by short-lived radioactive isotopes generates an internal magma ocean and the subsequent cooling and crystallization thereof. We study the conditions required to form and preserve basal cumulates and flotation crusts, and the implications for the thermal evolution of planetary bodies. Our model predicts that planetesimals larger than 30km can reach 1300oC and a melt fraction of 40 vol%, producing a solid-like to liquid-like rheological transition that triggers an internal magma ocean. In the magma ocean regime core-mantle differentiation occurs very quickly and the mantle convects under a relic of chondritic material whose thickness is controlled by the temperature of rheological transition. We show that the magma ocean episode is associated with time-dependent crystal segregation and no re-entrainment. Segregation of crystals is essentially constrained by their size and by their density difference with respect to the melt, the latter being fully determined by the planetesimal’s initial composition. Olivine cumulates are likely to form at the core-mantle boundary. Under certain particular conditions, a flotation crust can also form, which reduces the efficiency of heat evacuation by convection, thereby enhancing the magma ocean’s lifetime and the efficiency of crystal segregation. Two types of large-scale mantle structure are possible outcomes: a well-mixed upper mantle above an olivine cumulate, or a more finely layered ”onion-shell” structure.