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Geology & Earth Sciences vocabulary · Earth's Structure

Convection current

Meaning in geology & earth sciences, with examples

nounCommon term

In geology & earth sciences, convection current means: A circular flow in a fluid or soft solid in which hot material rises, spreads, cools and sinks again. In the mantle, it carries heat towards the surface.

In Turkish: konveksiyon akımı, ısı taşınım akımı

How it is used

Used in school and university explanations of why plates move. Geologists now see mantle convection as only part of the story: the pull of sinking plates at subduction zones (slab pull) is considered a major driving force. Also used in meteorology.

Example sentences

  1. Convection currents in the mantle carry heat from the core towards the surface.

  2. Older textbooks say that convection currents push the plates, but the full picture is more complex.

Common collocations

  • mantle convection currents
  • convection cell
  • rising convection current
  • heat transfer
  • mantleThe thick layer of hot, mostly solid rock between the crust and the core, reaching a depth of about 2,900 km. It flows very slowly over millions of years.
  • asthenosphereThe hot, weak layer of the upper mantle just below the lithosphere, which can flow slowly and allows the tectonic plates above it to move.
  • plate tectonicsThe theory that the Earth's outer shell is broken into large plates that move slowly, causing earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain building and the movement of continents.
  • tectonic plateOne of the large, rigid pieces of the Earth's lithosphere that move slowly over the mantle, usually by a few centimetres a year.

More terms: Earth's Structure

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