Relief and Gravity Anomalies Over a Convecting Mantle

Summary In a convecting upper mantle the normal stress is constant at a constant depth taken at the level where convection ceases. The relief of the ocean bottom is mostly due to the temperatures and not to convection itself; the influence of the shear stress is negligible except near the trench. The modeIs presented account for many aspects of plate tectonics but not for the exact variation of the relief, gravity and heat flow as functions of the distance from the ridges.