Subducting slabs, Hainan plume and intraplate volcanism in SE Asia: Insight from P-wave mantle tomography

Abstract

We present a high-resolution 3-D model of P wave tomography of the crust and mantle down to 1600 km depth under Southeast Asia (SE Asia), which is determined by inverting more than 1.3 million P wave arrival time data of local, regional and teleseismic events recorded at 1241 seismic stations deployed in SE Asia and mainland China. Strong and weak smoothing inversions are conducted to reveal different characteristic scales of velocity anomalies in the mantle. Both seismic and aseismic portions of the subducted plates in different parts of the circular subduction system in SE Asia are clearly revealed as high-velocity bodies in our tomographic images. The intraplate volcanoes in Borneo are underlain by significant low-velocity anomalies in the upper mantle, whereas a clear high-velocity anomaly is visible in the mantle transition zone and the lower mantle. We deem that hot and wet upwelling flows in the big mantle wedge above the stagnant slab in the mantle transition zone may have caused the intraplate volcanism in Borneo. A large low-velocity anomaly consisting of a flat head and a twisted tail extending to the bottom of our model is imaged beneath the southeastern Asian basalt province. The low-velocity anomaly possibly represents a hot zone whose shape may have been modified by mantle wind associated with a plate rotation. The hot zone has a lower-mantle origin and probably contains some small mantle upwellings inside, with the Hainan plume being a major trunk.