Water Input and Water Release from the Subducting Nazca Plate along Southern Central Chile (33°S-46°S)

Abstract:

The fixation of water in the oceanic crust and upper mantle, the flux of stored water into subduction zones and the partial liberation of those fluids underneath the forearc and arc are mechanisms that impact on almost every aspect of subduction zone processes, e.g. intensity and type of arc volcanism, deposition of ores and seismicity of the subduction fault, but also on global geochemical budgets by recycling material back into the continental crust. Much of that water fixation happens at the outer rise of subduction zones in particular by deep percolation of fluids to the upper mantle along bend faults.

Offshore Chile, the age of the subducting Nazca Plate varies between 0 Ma at the Chile Triple Junction (46°S) and ~38 Ma at the latitude of Valparaíso (32°S). Age-related variations in the thermal state of the subducting Nazca Plate impact on the water influx to the subduction zone, as well as the volumes of water that are released under the continental forearc or, alternatively, carried into the deeper mantle. Southern Central Chile is an ideal setting to study this effect, because other factors important for the subduction zone water budget appear constant.

We determine the water influx by calculating the crustal water uptake and by modeling the upper mantle serpentinization at the outer rise of the Chile Trench. The water release under forearc and arc is determined by coupling FEM thermal models of the subducting plate with stability fields of water-releasing mineral reactions for upper and lower crust and hydrated mantle. Results show that both the influx and the release of water vary drastically over a length of 1500 km. In particular, the oldest and coldest segments carry roughly twice as much water into the subduction zone as the youngest and hottest segments, but their release flux to the forearc is only about one fourth of the latter. This high variability over a subduction zone of ~1500 km length shows that it is insufficient to consider subduction zones as uniform entities in global estimates of subduction zone fluxes.