Gondwanan flood basalts linked seismically to plume-induced lithosphere instability

Abstract

Delamination of the continental lithospheric mantle is well recorded beneath several continents. However, the fate of the removed continental lithosphere has been rarely noted, unlike subducted slabs reasonably well imaged in the upper and mid mantle. Beneath former Gondwana, recent seismic tomographic models indicate the presence of at least 5 horizontal fast-wavespeed anomalies at ~600 km depths that do not appear to be related to slab subduction, including fast structures in locations consistent with delamination associated with the Paraná Flood Basalt event at ~134 Ma and the Deccan Traps event at ~66 Ma. These fast-wavespeed anomalies often lie above broad slow seismic wavespeed trunks at 500 to 700 km depths beneath former Gondwana, with slow wavespeed anomalies branching around them. Numerical experiments indicate that delaminated lithosphere tends to stagnate in the transition zone and mid-mantle above a mantle plume where it shapes subsequent plume upwelling. For hot plumes, the melt volume generated during plume-influenced delamination can easily reach ~2 to 4 × 106 km3, consistent with the basalt eruption volume at the Deccan Traps. This seismic and numerical evidence suggests that observed high-wavespeed mid-mantle anomalies beneath the locations of former flood basalts are delaminated fragments of former continental lithosphere, and that lithospheric delamination events in the presence of subcontinental plumes induced several of the continental flood basalts associated with the multiple breakup stages of Gondwanaland. Continued upwelling in these plumes can also have entrained subcontinental lithosphere in the mid-mantle to bring its distinctive geochemical signal to the modern mid-ocean spreading centers that surround southern and western Africa.