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Rapid subduction initiation and magmatism in the Western Pacific driven by internal vertical forces

Author

Listed:
  • B. Maunder

    (Royal School of Mines, Prince Consort Road, South Kensington)

  • J. Prytulak

    (Lower Mountjoy, South Road)

  • S. Goes

    (Royal School of Mines, Prince Consort Road, South Kensington)

  • M. Reagan

    (University of Iowa, Department of Earth and Envitonmental Sciences)

Abstract

Plate tectonics requires the formation of plate boundaries. Particularly important is the enigmatic initiation of subduction: the sliding of one plate below the other, and the primary driver of plate tectonics. A continuous, in situ record of subduction initiation was recovered by the International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 352, which drilled a segment of the fore-arc of the Izu-Bonin-Mariana subduction system, revealing a distinct magmatic progression with a rapid timescale (approximately 1 million years). Here, using numerical models, we demonstrate that these observations cannot be produced by previously proposed horizontal external forcing. Instead a geodynamic evolution that is dominated by internal, vertical forces produces both the temporal and spatial distribution of magmatic products, and progresses to self-sustained subduction. Such a primarily internally driven initiation event is necessarily whole-plate scale and the rock sequence generated (also found along the Tethyan margin) may be considered as a smoking gun for this type of event.

Suggested Citation

  • B. Maunder & J. Prytulak & S. Goes & M. Reagan, 2020. "Rapid subduction initiation and magmatism in the Western Pacific driven by internal vertical forces," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15737-4
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15737-4
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