Overriding plate thickness control on subducting slab curvature

Abstract:

The curvature of subducting lithosphere controls deformation due to bending at the trench, which results in a force that dissipates gravitational potential energy and may affect seismic coupling. We use 2‐D, thermo-mechanical subduction models to explore the dependence of the radius of curvature on the thickness of the subducting and overriding plates for models with both viscous and effectively plastic lithospheric rheologies. Such a plastic rheology has been shown to reproduce the bending stresses/moment computed using a kinematic strain rate description and a laboratory derived composite rheology. Laboratory and numerical models show that the bending geometry of subducting slabs with a viscous rheology is strongly dependent on slab thickness; thicker plates have a larger radius of curvature. However, the curvature of subducting plates on Earth, illuminated by the distribution of earthquake hypocenters, shows little to no dependence on the plate thickness or age. Such an observation is instead compatible with plates that have a plastic rheology. Indeed, our numerical models show that the radius of curvature of viscous plates has a stronger dependence on subducting plate thickness than in equivalent plastic models. In viscous plates, the bending moment produces a torque, which balances the torque exerted by buoyancy. However, for the plastic plate case the bending moment saturates at a maximum value and so cannot balance the gravitational torque. The saturation of bending moment means that, (a) the radius of curvature of the bending region is not constrained by this torque balance, and, (b) other forces are required to balance the gravitational torque. We explore the role that the overriding plate could play in controlling the subducting plate curvature in plastic plate models where the bending stresses have saturated. For such plates, we find that increasing the thickness of the overriding plate causes the radius of curvature to increase. The same correlation is found in real subduction zones when the radius of curvature is compared with near‐trench overriding lithospheric thickness. We suggest that the thickness of the overriding plate, through controlling the depth extent of the slab suction caused by the strong overriding plate, exerts a primary control on the curvature of subducting lithosphere.