Dataset Information

Stress barriers controlling lateral migration of magma revealed by seismic tomography.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how monogenetic volcanic systems work requires full comprehension of the local and regional stresses that govern magma migration inside them and why/how they seem to change from one eruption to another. During the 2011-2012 El Hierro eruption (Canary Islands) the characteristics of unrest, including a continuous change in the location of seismicity, made the location of the future vent unpredictable, so short term hazard assessment was highly imprecise. A 3D P-wave velocity model is obtained using arrival times of the earthquakes occurred during that pre-eruptive unrest and several latter post-eruptive seismic crises not related to further eruptions. This model reveals the rheological and structural complexity of the interior of El Hierro volcanic island. It shows a number of stress barriers corresponding to regional tectonic structures and blocked pathways from previous eruptions, which controlled ascent and lateral migration of magma and, together with the existence of N-S regional compression, reduced its options to find a suitable path to reach the surface and erupt.

SUBMITTER: Marti J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5233990 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Stress barriers controlling lateral migration of magma revealed by seismic tomography.

Martí J J Villaseñor A A Geyer A A López C C Tryggvason A A

Scientific reports 20170113

Understanding how monogenetic volcanic systems work requires full comprehension of the local and regional stresses that govern magma migration inside them and why/how they seem to change from one eruption to another. During the 2011-2012 El Hierro eruption (Canary Islands) the characteristics of unrest, including a continuous change in the location of seismicity, made the location of the future vent unpredictable, so short term hazard assessment was highly imprecise. A 3D P-wave velocity model i ...[more]

PMID: 28084436

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Project description:SE Asia comprises a heterogeneous assemblage of fragments derived from Cathaysia (Eurasia) in the north and Gondwana in the south, separated by suture zones representing closed former ocean basins. The western part of the region comprises Sundaland, which was formed by Late Permian-Triassic amalgamation of continental and arc fragments now found in Indochina, the Thai Penisula, Peninsular Malaysia, and Sumatra. On Borneo, the Kuching Zone formed the eastern margin of Sundaland since the Triassic. To the SE of the Kuching Zone, the Gondwana-derived continental fragments of SW Borneo and East Kalimantan accreted in the Cretaceous. South China-derived fragments accreted to north of the Kuching Zone in the Miocene. Deciphering this complex geodynamic history of SE Asia requires restoration of its deformation history, but quantitative constraints are often sparse. Paleomagnetism may provide such constraints. Previous paleomagnetic studies demonstrated that Sundaland and fragments in Borneo underwent vertical axis rotations since the Cretaceous. We provide new paleomagnetic data from Eocene-Miocene sedimentary rocks in the Kutai Basin, east Borneo, and critically reevaluate the published database, omitting sites that do not pass widely used, up-to-date reliability criteria. We use the resulting database to develop an updated kinematic restoration. We test the regional or local nature of paleomagnetic rotations against fits between the restored orientation of the Sunda Trench and seismic tomography images of the associated slabs. Paleomagnetic data and mantle tomography of the Sunda slab indicate that Sundaland did not experience significant vertical axis rotations since the Late Jurassic. Paleomagnetic data show that Borneo underwent a ~35° counterclockwise rotation constrained to the Late Eocene and an additional ~10° counterclockwise rotation since the Early Miocene. How this rotation was accommodated relative to Sundaland is enigmatic but likely involved distributed extension in the West Java Sea between Borneo and Sumatra. This Late Eocene-Early Oligocene rotation is contemporaneous with and may have been driven by a marked change in motion of Australia relative to Eurasia, from eastward to northward, which also has led to the initiation of subduction along the eastern Sunda trench and the proto-South China Sea to the south and north of Borneo, respectively.

Dataset Information

Stress barriers controlling lateral migration of magma revealed by seismic tomography.

Publications

Stress barriers controlling lateral migration of magma revealed by seismic tomography.

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