Plate tectonics planetary

Bethke, C. M. and S. Marshak, 1990, Brine migrations across North America - The plate tectonics of groundwater. Annual Review Earth and Planetary Sciences 18,287-315. 

Differentiation of other terrestrial planets must have varied in important ways from that of the Earth, because of differences in chemistry and conditions. For example, in Chapter 13, we learned that the crusts of the Moon and Mars are anorthosite and basalt, respectively - both very different from the crust of the Earth. N either has experienced recycling of crust back into the mantle, because of the absence of plate tectonics, and neither has sufficient water to help drive repeated melting events that produced the incompatible-element-rich continental crust (Taylor and McLennan, 1995). The mantles of the Moon and Mars are compositionally different from that of the Earth, although all are ultramafic. Except for these bodies, our understanding of planetary differentiation is rather unconstrained and details are speculative. 

Quantitative studies of mantle mixing evolved from early laboratory and numerical experiments that linked plate tectonics with convection in the planetary mantle (McKenzie, 1969 Richter, 1973 McKenzie et al., 1974 Richter and Parsons, 1975). The finite strain theory for the development of seismic anisotropy can be used to describe the deformation and subsequent mixing of mantle... 

Venus is similar in size to the Earth and might be expected to have differentiated to a similar extent. However, while the early accretion history might have been similar (with the exception of the absence of a moon-forming event), silicate differentiation did not proceed according to the familiar plate tectonic mechanisms. There is, of course, no data on the interior of Venus, and so planetary degassing characteristics must be deduced from limited atmospheric data and observations of volcanic activity at the surface. 

It is perhaps not surprising therefore that an enthusiastic application of the plate tectonic paradigm to Archaean time has delivered mixed results (e.g. see critique by Hamilton 1993, 1998) and, currently, impedes an equally exciting research avenue into what is different about the Archaean Eon and the early Earth , and what this tells us about secular evolution of our planet. A broader view, one naturally promoted by planetary science, is that Earth is just one of several... 

Bickle, M. j. 1978. Heat loss from the Earth a constraint on Archaean tectonics from the relation between geothermal gradients and the rate of plate production. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 40, 301-315. 

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