Fig. 16

Rendering of the \(D=3\) model at time \(t=t_\text {slab}\). Tracers are added where tails show \({5.5}\,\hbox {Myr}\) long pathlines. Some pathlines cross through the slab interface shown; however, this is not an indication that the tracers have passed through the interface as the time evolving slab is not shown. There is very minor movement in the tracers located in \(\Omega _\text {plate}\), their displacement is dictated by the slab deformation above the plate depth \(d_\text {plate}\) highlighted as a translucent layer. Pathlines close to the slab surface are dominated by the convergence component of the velocity boundary condition direction \(\hat{\varvec{d}}_\text {conv} = \hat{\varvec{x}}\). An animation of the slab evolution to this final geometry is available in the accompanying zenodo repository (see data availability)