Structure of the Lithosphere-Asthenosphere System Beneath the Juan de Fuca Plate: Results of Body Wave Imaging Using Cascadia Initiative Data

Abstract:

The plate-scale deployment of ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) as part of the Cascadia Initiative (CI) of NSF provides a unique opportunity to study the structure and dynamics of the lithosphere-asthenosphere system beneath an entire oceanic plate, from its birth at a spreading center to its subduction beneath a continent. Here we present tomographic images of the seismic structure of oceanic upper mantle beneath the Juan de Fuca (JdF) and Gorda plates derived from body wave delay times. The results constrain structural anomalies beneath the JdF and Gorda spreading centers, the Blanco and Mendocino transform faults, near ridge hotspots such as Axial Seamount, and the upper mantle structure beneath the subducting oceanic lithosphere. We measured delay times of teleseismic P and S wave phases for the first two years of the CI. Our tomographic analysis assumes both isotropic and anisotropic starting models and accounts for finite-frequency effects and three-dimensional ray bending. Preliminary results indicate that the upper mantle structure beneath the JdF spreading center is asymmetric, with lower shear wave velocities beneath the Pacific plate (also the direction of ridge migration). On a regional scale, regions of lower seismic velocities beneath the JdF and Gorda spreading centers correlate with shallower ridge depths. Beneath the southern Gorda plate a low velocity anomaly is detected, which is absent to the north; this anomaly is bounded to the south by the Mendocino transform. Ongoing work includes analysis of the third year of CI data, which will improve resolution of structure and allow better definition of anomalies in the vicinity of the Blanco transform. In addition, we will combine ocean and continental data to obtain images of the Cascadia subduction zone.