Benjamin Heit

Seismicity and average velocities beneath the Argentine Puna Plateau

A network of 60 seismographs was deployed across the Andes at ∼23.5°S. The array was centered in the backarc, atop the Puna high plateau in NW Argentina. P and S arrival times of 426 intermediate depth earthquakes were inverted for 1-D velocity structure and hypocentral coordinates. Average velocities and v p /v s in the crust are low Average mantle velocities are high but difficult to interpret because of the presence of a fast velocity slab at depth. Although the hypocenters sharply define a 35° dipping Benioff zone, seismicity in the slab is not continuous. The spatial clustering of earthquakes is thought to reflect inherited heterogeneties of the subducted oceanic lithosphere. Additionally, 57 crustal earthquakes were located. Seismicity concentrates in the fold and thrust belt of the foreland and Eastern Cordillera, and along and south of the El Toro-Olacapato-Calama Lineament (TOCL). Focal mechanisms of two earthquakes at this structure exhibit left lateral strike-slip mechanisms similar to the suggested kinematics of the TOCL. We believe that the Puna north of the TOCL behaves like a rigid block with little internal deformation, whereas the area south of the TOCL is weaker and currently deforming.

Seismological Studies of the Central and Southern Andes

The central Andes have formed by the complex interaction of subduction-related and tectonic processes on a lithospheric scale. The deep structure of the entire mountain range and underlying subduction zone has been investigated by passive and active seismological experiments. Detailed tomographic features are interpreted to represent the ascent paths of fluid and melts in the subduction zone and provide new insights about the mechanisms of lithospheric deformation. Receiver functions from teleseismic events have been used to observe the upper-plate continental Moho and subducted oceanic Moho, as well as the interaction of subducted oceanic lithosphere and mantle discontinuities. A second working area was established in the southern Andes to compare two different types of Andean subduction and to identify the principal controlling parameters. Besides the first accurate definition of the Wadati-Benioff zone in south-central Chile, a three-dimensional, tomographic velocity model based on local earthquakes in the southern Andes is presented.

Crustal thickness and Vp/Vs ratio in NW Namibia from receiver functions: Evidence for magmatic underplating due to mantle plume‐crust interaction

A seismological network was operated at the junction of the aseismic Walvis Ridge with the northwestern Namibian coast. We mapped crustal thickness and bulk Vp/Vs ratio by the H-k analysis of receiver functions. In the Damara Belt, the crustal thickness is ~35 km with a Vp/Vs ratio of <1.75. The crust is ~30 km thick at the coast in the Kaoko Belt. Strong variations in crustal thickness and Vp/Vs ratios are found at the landfall of the Walvis Ridge. Here and at ~150 km northeast of the coast, the crustal thickness increases dramatically reaching 44 km and the Vp/Vs ratios are extremely high (~1.89). These anomalies are interpreted as magmatic underplating produced by the mantle plume during the breakup of Gondwana. The area affected by the plume is smaller than 300 km in diameter, possibly ruling out the existence of a large plume head under the continent during the breakup.

Central Andean mantle and crustal seismicity beneath the Southern Puna plateau and the northern margin of the Chilean‐Pampean flat slab

Earthquake hypocenters recorded in the Andean Southern Puna seismic array (25–28°S, 70–65°W) provide new constraints on the shape of the subducting Nazca plate beneath the Puna plateau, the transition into the Chilean-Pampean flat slab and the thermal state of the mantle and crust. Some 270 new mantle hypocenters suggest that the subducting slab under the Puna shoals into the flat-slab segment more abruptly and farther to the north than previously indicated. The revised geometry is consistent with the Central Volcanic Zone Incapillo caldera being the southernmost center with Pleistocene activity until reaching the southern side of the flat-slab region. Evidence for the revised slab geometry includes three well-defined hypocenter clusters in the Pipanaco nest (27.5–29°S, 68–66°W), which are interpreted to reflect slab-bending stresses. A few low-magnitude earthquakes with strongly attenuated S waves in the long-recognized Antofalla teleseismic gap (25.5–27.5°S) support a continuous slab under the Southern Puna. The paucity of gap earthquakes and the presence of mafic magmas are consistent with a hot mantle wedge reflecting recent lithospheric delamination. Evidence for a hot overlaying Puna crust comes from new crustal earthquake hypocenters concentrated at depths shallower than 5 km. Two notable short-duration swarms were recorded under the resurgent dome of the ~2 Ma back-arc Cerro Galan caldera and the near-arc Cerro Torta dome. New crustal earthquake focal mechanisms from 17 events in the array along with two existing mechanisms have strike slip, oblique reverse, and oblique normal solutions fitting with regional E-W compression and N-S extension.

Delamination of southern Puna lithosphere revealed by body wave attenuation tomography

The southern Puna Plateau has been proposed to result from a major Pliocene delamination event that has previously been inferred from geochemical, geological, and some preliminary geophysical data. Seventy-five seismic stations were deployed across the southern Puna Plateau in 2007–2009 by scientists from the U.S., Germany, Chile, and Argentina to test the delamination model for the region. The Puna passive seismic stations were located between 25 and 28°S. Using the seismic waveform data collected from the PUNA experiment, we employ attenuation tomography methods to resolve both compressional and shear quality factors (Qp and Qs, respectively) in the crust and uppermost mantle. The images clearly show a high-Q Nazca slab subducting eastward beneath the Puna plateau and another high-Q block with a westward dip beneath the Eastern Cordillera. We suggest that the latter is a piece of delaminated South American lithosphere. A significant low-Q zone lies between the Nazca slab and the South American lithosphere and extends southward from the northern margin of the seismic array at 25°S before vanishing around 27.5°S. This low-Q zone extends farther west in the crust and uppermost mantle at the southern end of the seismic array. The low-Q zone reaches ~100 km depth beneath the northern part of the array but only ~50 km depth in the south. Lateral variations of the low-Q zone reflect the possible mechanism conversion between mantle upwelling related to delamination and dehydration. The depth of the Nazca slab as defined by Q images decreases from north to south beneath the plateau, which is consistent with the steep-flat transition of the angle of the subducting slab as defined by previous earthquake studies.

Seismic structure of the lithosphere beneath NW Namibia:Impact of the Tristan da Cunha mantle plume

Northwestern Namibia, at the landfall of the Walvis Ridge, was affected by the Tristan da Cunha mantle plume during continental rupture between Africa and South America, as evidenced by the presence of the Etendeka continental flood basalts. Here we use data from a passive-source seismological network to investigate the upper mantle structure and to elucidate the Cretaceous mantle plume-lithosphere interaction. Receiver functions reveal an interface associated with a negative velocity contrast within the lithosphere at an average depth of 80 km. We interpret this interface as the relic of the lithosphereasthenosphere boundary (LAB) formed during the Mesozoic by interaction of the Tristan da Cunha plume head with the pre-existing lithosphere. The velocity contrast might be explained by stagnated and ‘‘frozen’’ melts beneath an intensively depleted and dehydrated peridotitic mantle. The present-day LAB is poorly visible with converted waves, indicating a gradual impedance contrast. Beneath much of the study area, converted phases of the 410 and 660 km mantle transition zone discontinuities arrive 1.5 s earlier than in the landward plume-unaffected continental interior, suggesting high velocities in the upper mantle caused by a thick lithosphere. This indicates that after lithospheric thinning during continental breakup, the lithosphere has increased in thickness during the last 132 Myr. Thermal cooling of the continental lithosphere alone cannot produce the lithospheric thickness required here. We propose that the remnant plume material, which has a higher seismic velocity than the ambient mantle due to melt depletion and dehydration, significantly contributed to the thickening of the mantle lithosphere.