TY - JOUR
T1 - Mantle plumes and associated flow beneath Arabia and East Africa
AU - Chang, Sung Joon
AU - Van der Lee, Suzan
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Dr. Yongcheol Park for providing digital data for locations of volcanoes and post-12 Ma volcanic rocks and for sharing his relative arrival times. We also thank three anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved this manuscript. All figures were created using Generic Mapping Tools (GMT; Wessel and Smith, 1998 ). This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant KRF-2006-214-C00092 funded by the Korean Government (MOEHRD) , the U.S. DOE under contract DE-FC52-04NA25541 , and Northwestern University .
PY - 2011/2/1
Y1 - 2011/2/1
N2 - We investigate mantle plumes and associated flow beneath the lithosphere by imaging the three-dimensional S-velocity structure beneath Arabia and East Africa. This image shows elongated vertical and horizontal low-velocity anomalies down to at least mid mantle depths. This three-dimensional S-velocity model is obtained through the joint inversion of teleseismic S- and SKS-arrival times, regional S- and Rayleigh waveform fits, fundamental-mode Rayleigh-wave group velocities, and independent Moho constraints from receiver functions, reflection/refraction profiles, and gravity measurements. In the resolved parts of our S-velocity model we find that the Afar plume is distinctly separate from the Kenya plume, showing the Afar plume's origin in the lower mantle beneath southwestern Arabia. We identify another quasi-vertical low-velocity anomaly beneath Jordan and northern Arabia which extends into the lower mantle and may be related to volcanism in Jordan, northern Arabia, and possibly southern Turkey. Comparing locations of mantle plumes from the joint inversion with fast axes of shear-wave splitting, we confirm horizontal mantle flow radially away from Afar. Low-velocity channels in our model support southwestward flow beneath Ethiopia, eastward flow beneath the Gulf of Aden, but not northwestwards beneath the entire Red Sea. Instead, northward mantle flow from Afar appears to be channeled beneath Arabia.
AB - We investigate mantle plumes and associated flow beneath the lithosphere by imaging the three-dimensional S-velocity structure beneath Arabia and East Africa. This image shows elongated vertical and horizontal low-velocity anomalies down to at least mid mantle depths. This three-dimensional S-velocity model is obtained through the joint inversion of teleseismic S- and SKS-arrival times, regional S- and Rayleigh waveform fits, fundamental-mode Rayleigh-wave group velocities, and independent Moho constraints from receiver functions, reflection/refraction profiles, and gravity measurements. In the resolved parts of our S-velocity model we find that the Afar plume is distinctly separate from the Kenya plume, showing the Afar plume's origin in the lower mantle beneath southwestern Arabia. We identify another quasi-vertical low-velocity anomaly beneath Jordan and northern Arabia which extends into the lower mantle and may be related to volcanism in Jordan, northern Arabia, and possibly southern Turkey. Comparing locations of mantle plumes from the joint inversion with fast axes of shear-wave splitting, we confirm horizontal mantle flow radially away from Afar. Low-velocity channels in our model support southwestward flow beneath Ethiopia, eastward flow beneath the Gulf of Aden, but not northwestwards beneath the entire Red Sea. Instead, northward mantle flow from Afar appears to be channeled beneath Arabia.
KW - Arabia
KW - East Africa
KW - Joint inversion
KW - Mantle flow
KW - Mantle plume
KW - Seismic tomography
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U2 - 10.1016/j.epsl.2010.12.050
DO - 10.1016/j.epsl.2010.12.050
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79251598811
SN - 0012-821X
VL - 302
SP - 448
EP - 454
JO - Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters
JF - Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters
IS - 3-4
ER -