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Subduction history of the Caribbean from upper-mantle seismic imaging and plate reconstruction

Braszus, Benedikt; Goes, Saskia; Allen, Rob; Rietbrock, Andreas; Collier, Jenny; Harmon, Nick; Henstock, Tim; Hicks, Stephen; Rychert, Catherine A.; Maunder, Ben; van Hunen, Jeroen; Bie, Lidong; Blundy, Jon; Cooper, George; Davy, Richard; Kendall, J. Michael; Macpherson, Colin; Wilkinson, Jamie; Wilson, Marjorie

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Authors

Benedikt Braszus

Saskia Goes

Rob Allen

Andreas Rietbrock

Jenny Collier

Nick Harmon

Tim Henstock

Stephen Hicks

Catherine A. Rychert

Ben Maunder

Lidong Bie

Jon Blundy

George Cooper

Richard Davy

J. Michael Kendall

Colin Macpherson

Jamie Wilkinson

Marjorie Wilson



Abstract

The margins of the Caribbean and associated hazards and resources have been shaped by a poorly understood history of subduction. Using new data, we improve teleseismic P-wave imaging of the eastern Caribbean upper mantle and compare identified subducted-plate fragments with trench locations predicted from plate reconstruction. This shows that material at 700–1200 km depth below South America derives from 90–115 Myr old westward subduction, initiated prior to Caribbean Large-Igneous-Province volcanism. At shallower depths, an accumulation of subducted material is attributed to Great Arc of the Caribbean subduction as it evolved over the past 70 Ma. We interpret gaps in these subducted-plate anomalies as: a plate window and tear along the subducted Proto-Caribbean ridge; tearing along subducted fracture zones, and subduction of a volatile-rich boundary between Proto-Caribbean and Atlantic domains. Phases of back-arc spreading and arc jumps correlate with changes in age, and hence buoyancy, of the subducting plate.

Citation

Braszus, B., Goes, S., Allen, R., Rietbrock, A., Collier, J., Harmon, N., …Wilson, M. (2021). Subduction history of the Caribbean from upper-mantle seismic imaging and plate reconstruction. Nature Communications, 12(1), Article 4211. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24413-0

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 21, 2021
Online Publication Date Jul 9, 2021
Publication Date 2021
Deposit Date Jul 10, 2021
Publicly Available Date Nov 26, 2021
Journal Nature Communications
Publisher Nature Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 12
Issue 1
Article Number 4211
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24413-0

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.





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