CAN-HK : An a priori crustal model for the Canadian Shield

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The United Kingdom component of the Hudson Bay Lithospheric Experiment (HuBLE) was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Grant Number NE/F007337/1, with financial and logistical support from the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office (CNGO), SEIS-UK (the seismic node of NERC), and the First Nations communities of Nunavut. J. Beauchesne and J. Kendall provided invaluable assistance in the field. I. D. B. was funded by the Leverhulme Trust and acknowledges support through Grant Number RPG-2013- 332. The authors thank three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A multiphase seismic investigation of the shallow subduction zone, southern North Island, New Zealand

The shallow structure of the Hikurangi margin, in particular the interface between the Australian Plate and the subducting Pacific Plate, is investigated using the traveltimes of direct and converted seismic phases from local earthquakes. Mode conversions take place as upgoing energy from earthquakes in the subducted slab crosses the plate interface. These PS and SP converted arrivals are observed as intermediate phases between the direct P and S waves. They place an additional constraint on the depth of the interface and enable the topography of the subducted plate to be mapped across the region. 301 suitable earthquakes were recorded by the Leeds (Tararua) broad-band seismic array, a temporary line of three-component short-period stations, and the permanent stations of the New Zealand national network. This provided coverage across the land area of southern North Island, New Zealand, at a total of 17 stations. Rays are traced through a structure parametrized using layered B-splines and the traveltime residuals inverted, simultaneously, for hypocentre relocation, interface depth and seismic velocity. The results are consistent with sediment in the northeast of the study region and gentle topography on the subducting plate. This study and recent tectonic reconstructions of the southwest Pacific suggest that the subducting plate consists of captured, oceanic crust. The anomalous nature of this crust partly accounts for the unusual features of the Hikurangi margin, e.g. the shallow trench, in comparison with the subducting margin further north

The OGS local virtual seismic network in South-Central Europe as an array: exploiting depth phases to locate upper mantle discontinuities

The Centro di Ricerche Sismologiche (CRS, Seismological Research Center) of the Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS, Italian National Institute for Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics) in Udine (Italy) after the strong earthquake of magnitude Mw=6.4 occurred in 1976 in the Italian Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, started to operate the North-eastern Italy (NI) Seismic Network: it currently consists of 13 very sensitive broad band and 21 simpler short period seismic stations, all telemetered to and acquired in real time at the OGS-CRS data center in Udine. Real time data exchange agreements in place with neighbouring Italian, Slovenian, Austrian and Swiss seismological institutes lead to a total number of 94 seismic stations acquired in real time, which makes the OGS the reference institute for seismic monitoring of North-eastern Italy. In this study we use P, pP, S and sS phases from global events recorded by the OGS local virtual seismic network in South-Central Europe to study upper mantle discontinuities above earthquakes in the subducted Pacific Plate. We use the time lag between the surface-reflected depth phase and a precursor to determine the discontinuity depth. Accurate estimation of reflector depth depends on a velocity model of the source-side mantle structure. In contrast to typical one-dimensional velocity models, our source-side structure is oceanic, with a shallow Moho and thin crust overlain with water. The time lag between the direct P and pP or S and sS arrivals without accounting for source structure can be as large as 5 s when compared to a purely continental model like iasp91 or ak135. We identify upper mantle discontinuities using slant stacking and depth-migrated standardized waveforms. The processing shows S-to-P arrivals from the 660 km discontinuity, the 410 km discontinuity, and shallower upper mantle ones of uncertain origin

The Hudson Bay Lithospheric Experiment (HuBLE) : Insights into Precambrian Plate Tectonics and the Development of Mantle Keels

The UK component of HuBLE was supported by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grant NE/F007337/1, with financial and logistical support from the Geological Survey of Canada, Canada–Nunavut Geoscience Office, SEIS-UK (the seismic node of NERC), and First Nations communities of Nunavut. J. Beauchesne and J. Kendall provided invaluable assistance in the field. Discussions with M. St-Onge, T. Skulski, D. Corrigan and M. Sanborne-Barrie were helpful for interpretation of the data. D. Eaton and F. A. Darbyshire acknowledge the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. Four stations on the Belcher Islands and northern Quebec were installed by the University of Western Ontario and funded through a grant to D. Eaton (UWO Academic Development Fund). I. Bastow is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. This is Natural Resources Canada Contribution 20130084 to its Geomapping for Energy and Minerals Program. This work has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Unions Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant agreement no. 240473 ‘CoMITAC’.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Core-Exsolved SiO2 Dispersal in the Earth's Mantle

SiO2 may have been expelled from the core directly following core formation in the early stages of Earth's accretion and onward through the present day. On account of SiO2's low density with respect to both the core and the lowermost mantle, we examine the process of SiO2 accumulation at the core‐mantle boundary (CMB) and its incorporation into the mantle by buoyant rise. Today, if SiO2 is 100–10,000 times more viscous than lower mantle material, the dimensions of SiO2 diapirs formed by the viscous Rayleigh‐Taylor instability at the CMB would cause them to be swept into the mantle as inclusions of 100 m–10 km diameter. Under early Earth conditions of rapid heat loss after core formation, SiO2 diapirs of ∼1 km diameter could have risen independently of mantle flow to their level of neutral buoyancy in the mantle, trapping them there due to a combination of intrinsically high viscosity and neutral buoyancy. We examine the SiO2 yield by assuming Si + O saturation at the conditions found at the base of a magma ocean and find that for a range of conditions, dispersed bodies could reach as high as 8.5 vol % in parts of the lower mantle. At such low concentration, their effect on aggregate seismic wave speeds is within observational seismology uncertainty. However, their presence can account for small‐scale scattering in the lower mantle due to the bodies' large‐velocity contrast. We conclude that the shallow lower mantle (700–1,500 km depth) could harbor SiO2 released in early Earth times

Sulfide melts and long-term low seismic wavespeeds in lithospheric and asthenospheric mantle

Some studies of lithospheric and asthenospheric seismic structure, report mantle velocities as low as ∼4% below the reference models used. While these low wavespeeds may be attributed to thermal effects in tectonically young or actively volcanic regions, in older, tectonically stable regions low velocity anomalies apparently persist even past the decay time of any thermal perturbation, rendering such a mechanism implausible. Low volume melts can also reduce wavespeeds, but their buoyancy should drain them upward away from source regions, preventing significant accumulation if they are able to segregate. Sulfide, ubiquitous as inclusions in lithospheric mantle xenoliths, forms dense, non-segregating melts at temperatures and volatile fugacities characteristic of even old lithospheric mantle. We show that 1–5 volume percent sulfide melts can act to permanently create reductions up to 5.5% in seismic wavespeeds in areas of the lithosphere and the asthenosphere disturbed by prior melting events that carry and concentrate sulfide

Polarization filtering for automatic picking of seismic data and improved converted phase detection

Data-adaptive polarization filtering is used to improve the detection of converted seismic phases. Both direct waves and mode-converted PS and SP arrivals may be more easily picked on the filtered records. An autopicking routine is applied that cuts the polarization filtered traces according to the modelled traveltime of each phase through an initial structure. Use of forward-modelled, source–receiver times reduces the likelihood of an automatic pick being incorrectly made on spurious spikes in the polarization filtered trace. It is therefore a realistic way of automatically picking multiphase data sets or, more generally, linearly polarized phases where low signal-to-noise ratios may be encountered. The method is suitable for any three-component seismic data and is here applied to local earthquakes recorded in North Island, New Zealand. Intermediate energy is observed between the direct P and S arrivals due to phase conversion at the interface between the Indo-Australian and subducting Pacific plates. The amplitudes of these converted arrivals are often too low for them to be identified above the P-wave coda but polarization filtering of the records enables the yield of converted phase picks to be greatly increased

Hazard potential of volcanic flank collapses raised by new megatsunami evidence

Large-scale gravitational flank collapses of steep volcanic islands are hypothetically capable of triggering megatsunamis with highly catastrophic effects. Yet, evidence for the generation and impact of collapse-triggered megatsunamis and their high run-ups remains scarce or is highly controversial. Therefore, doubts remain on whether island flank failures truly generate enough volume flux to trigger giant tsunamis, leading to diverging opinions concerning the real hazard potential of such collapses. We show that one of the most prominent oceanic volcanoes on Earth—Fogo, in the Cape Verde Islands—catastrophically collapsed and triggered a megatsunami with devastating effects ~73,000 years ago. Our deductions are based on the recent discovery and cosmogenic 3He dating of tsunamigenic deposits found on nearby Santiago Island, which attest to the impact of this giant tsunami and document wave run-up heights exceeding 270 m. The evidence reported here implies that Fogo’s flank failure involved at least one fast and voluminous event that led to a giant tsunami, in contrast to what has been suggested before. Our observations therefore further demonstrate that flank collapses may indeed catastrophically happen and are capable of triggering tsunamis of enormous height and energy, adding to their hazard potential