Journal article
Slab to back-arc to arc: fluid and melt pathways through the mantle wedge beneath the Lesser Antilles
- Abstract:
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Volatiles expelled from subducted plates promote melting of the overlying warm mantle, feeding arc volcanism. However, debates continue over the factors controlling melt generation and transport, and how these determine the placement of volcanoes. To broaden our synoptic view of these fundamental mantle wedge processes, we image seismic attenuation beneath the Lesser Antilles arc, an end-member system that slowly subducts old, tectonized lithosphere. Punctuated anomalies with high ratios of bulk-to-shear attenuation (Qκ−1/Qμ−1 > 0.6) and VP/VS (>1.83) lie 40 km above the slab, representing expelled fluids that are retained in a cold boundary layer, transporting fluids toward the back-arc. The strongest attenuation (1000/QS ~ 20), characterizing melt in warm mantle, lies beneath the back-arc, revealing how back-arc mantle feeds arc volcanoes. Melt ponds under the upper plate and percolates toward the arc along structures from earlier back-arc spreading, demonstrating how slab dehydration, upper-plate properties, past tectonics, and resulting melt pathways collectively condition volcanism.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 2.2MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1126/sciadv.add2143
Authors
- Publisher:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Journal:
- Science Advances More from this journal
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 5
- Article number:
- eadd2143
- Publication date:
- 2023-02-01
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-01-04
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2375-2548
- Pmid:
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36724230
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1327354
- Local pid:
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pubs:1327354
- Deposit date:
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2023-03-17
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Hicks et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2023 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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