An ancient slab visible from the transition zone to the deep mantle beneath the southern Indian Ocean

Abstract:

Ancient subducted tectonic plates have been observed in past seismic images of the mantle beneath North America and Eurasia including some that subducted before the end of the Mesozoic Era. It is likely that other ancient slab structures have remained largely hidden, particularly in the seismic-data-limited regions beneath the vast oceans in the southern hemisphere. Here we present a new global tomographic image, which shows a slab-like structure beneath the southern Indian Ocean with coherency from the upper mantle transition zone to the core-mantle boundary region – with striking similarities to past and current images of the Farallon slab. Based on the image and additional geoscientific observations, we postulate that the structure is an oceanic plate that sank into the mantle along a 7000-km intra-oceanic subduction zone that migrated southwestward across the ancient Tethys Ocean in the Mesozoic Era, perhaps beginning prior to 200 Ma. Slab material still trapped in the transition zone is positioned near the former edge of East Gondwana ca. 140 Ma suggesting that subduction terminated near the margin of the ancient continent prior to breakup and subsequent dispersal of its subcontinents. If our interpretation is correct, the slab likely represents the first of its kind with extensive transition zone stagnation (exceeding 100 million years) followed by eventual penetration into the lower mantle. It suggests that some slabs may sink through the mantle much slower than previously believed and may reside intact in the shallow mantle if left undisturbed by subsequent subduction episodes. We postulate other dynamic mechanisms that may be involved and a potential link to Indian Ocean MORB chemistry.

This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL-ABS-675725