Uplift, rupture, and rollback of the Farallon slab reflected in volcanic perturbations along the Yellowstone adakite hot spot track

Abstract

AbstractField, geochemical, and geochronological data show that the southern segment of the ancestral Cascades arc advanced into the Oregon back‐arc region from 30 to 20 Ma. We attribute this event to thermal uplift of the Farallon slab by the Yellowstone mantle plume, with heat diffusion, decompression, and the release of volatiles promoting high‐K calc‐alkaline volcanism throughout the back‐arc region. The greatest degree of heating is expressed at the surface by a broad ENE‐trending zone of adakites and related rocks generated by melting of oceanic crust from the Farallon slab. A hiatus in eruptive activity began at ca. 22–20 Ma but ended abruptly at 16.7 Ma with renewed volcanism from slab rupture occurring in two separate regions. The eastern rupture resulted in the extrusion of Steens Basalt during the ascent and melting of a dry mantle (plume) source contaminated with depleted mantle. The contemporaneous western rupture resulted in renewed subduction, melting of a wet mantle source, and the rejuvenation of high‐K calc‐alkaline volcanism near the Nevada‐California border at 16.7 Ma. Here the initiation of slab rollback is evident in the westward migration of arc volcanism at 7.8 km/Ma. Today, the uplifted slab is largely missing beneath the Oregon back‐arc region, replaced instead by a seismic hole that is bound on the south by the adakite hot spot track. We attribute slab destruction to thermal uplift and mechanical dislocation that culminated in rapid tearing of the slab from 17–15 Ma and possible foundering and sinking of slab segments from 16 to 10 Ma.