The zone of influence of the subducting slab in the asthenospheric mantle

Abstract

AbstractDue to the multidisciplinary nature of combined geodynamics and shear wave splitting studies, there is still much to be understood in terms of isolating the contributions from mantle dynamics to the shear wave splitting signal, even in a two‐dimensional (2‐D) mantle flow framework. This paper investigates the viscous flow, lattice preferred orientation (LPO) development, and predicted shear wave splitting for a suite of buoyancy‐driven subduction models using a non‐linear rheology to shed light on the nature of the slab‐driven asthenospheric flow and plate‐mantle coupling. The slab‐driven zone of influence in the mantle, LPO fabric, and resulting synthetic splitting are sensitive to slab strength and slab initial slab dip. The non‐linear viscosity formulations leads to dynamic reductions in asthenospheric viscosity extending over 600 km into the mantle wedge and over 300 km behind the trench, with peak flow velocities occurring in models with a weaker slab and moderate slab dip. The olivine LPO fabric in the asthenosphere generally increases in alignment strength with increased proximity to the slab but can be transient and spatially variable on small length scales. The results suggest that LPO formed during initial subduction may persist into the steady state subduction regime. Vertical flow fields in the asthenosphere can produce shear wave splitting variations with back azimuth that deviate from the predictions of uniform trench‐normal anisotropy, a result that bears on the interpretation of complexity in shear wave splitting observed in real subduction zones. Furthermore, the models demonstrate the corner flow paradigm should not be equated with a 2‐D subduction framework.