Hicks, Stephen P;
Bie, Lidong;
Rychert, Catherine A;
Harmon, Nicholas;
Goes, Saskia;
Rietbrock, Andreas;
Wei, Songqiao Shawn;
... Kendall, John-Michael; + view all
(2023)
Slab to back-arc to arc: Fluid and melt pathways through the mantle wedge beneath the Lesser Antilles.
Science Advances
, 9
(5)
, Article eadd2143. 10.1126/sciadv.add2143.
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Abstract
Volatiles expelled from subducted plates promote melting of the overlying warm mantle, feeding arc volcanism. However, debates continue over the factors controlling melt generation and transport, and how these determine the placement of volcanoes. To broaden our synoptic view of these fundamental mantle wedge processes, we image seismic attenuation beneath the Lesser Antilles arc, an end-member system that slowly subducts old, tectonized lithosphere. Punctuated anomalies with high ratios of bulk-to-shear attenuation ( Q κ −1 / Q μ −1 > 0.6) and V P / V S (>1.83) lie 40 km above the slab, representing expelled fluids that are retained in a cold boundary layer, transporting fluids toward the back-arc. The strongest attenuation (1000/ Q S ~ 20), characterizing melt in warm mantle, lies beneath the back-arc, revealing how back-arc mantle feeds arc volcanoes. Melt ponds under the upper plate and percolates toward the arc along structures from earlier back-arc spreading, demonstrating how slab dehydration, upper-plate properties, past tectonics, and resulting melt pathways collectively condition volcanism.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Slab to back-arc to arc: Fluid and melt pathways through the mantle wedge beneath the Lesser Antilles |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1126/sciadv.add2143 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.add2143 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2023 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Earth Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10164271 |
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