Anisotropic structure in the mantle wedge beneath southeastern Mexico from shear-wave splitting tomography

Abstract

Cocos intraslab earthquakes were used to make a 3-D tomographic inversion to define a crystallographic orientation model for the mantle wedge beneath southeastern Mexico. This model provided insights regarding the pattern of the mantle wedge flow and its relationship to the geometry of the subducting slab. The mantle wedge was parametrized as a 3-D block model of crystallographic orientations assuming the elastic constants of olivine and orthopyroxene with orthorhombic symmetry (hexagonal symmetry was also tested). A linearized, damped, and iterative least-squares approach was used to account for the nonlinear behavior of the shear-wave splitting, numerically recalculating partial derivatives after each iteration. The best-fitting model is consistent with two main flow regimes: (1) 2-D corner flow in a mantle wedge core made up of A-type olivine fabric northwest of the Tehuantepec Ridge extension, and (2) 3-D trench-parallel mantle flow in a mantle wedge core made up of A-, C-, or E-type olivine fabric southeast of this geological feature. Around the Tehuantepec Ridge extension, a partially serpentinized mantle wedge tip is inferred since olivine a-axis orientations are trench-parallel regardless of whether a 2-D corner flow or a 3-D trench-parallel flow prevails. Right above the Tehuantepec Ridge extension (beyond the 100 km isodepth contour of the subducting slab), a change of well-resolved olivine a-axis orientations from trench-normal to trench-parallel while going from northwest to southeast is observed. It signals an abrupt change in the mantle flow pattern possibly through a vertical tear in the Cocos slab. 3-D toroidal flow could be driving subslab mantle material into the mantle wedge around the deepest slab segment. Lastly, approximately trench-normal olivine a-axis orientations are observed in the mantle wedge tip near the Mexico and Guatemala border region, and they could be explained by assuming the presence of B-type olivine fabric.