Journal article

The Role of Lithospheric-Deep Mantle Interactions on the Style and Stress Evolution of Arc-Continent Collision

AF Rodríguez Corcho, S Polanco, R Farrington, R Beucher, C Montes, L Moresi

Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems | AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION | Published : 2022

Abstract

We investigate how the mechanical properties of intra-oceanic arcs affect the collision style and associated stress-strain evolution with buoyancy-driven models of subduction that accurately reproduce the dynamic interaction of the lithosphere and mantle. We performed a series of simulations only varying the effective arc thickness as it controls the buoyancy of intra-oceanic arcs. Our simulations spontaneously evolve into two contrasting styles of collision that are controlled by a 3% density contrast between the arc and the continental plate. In simulations with less buoyant arcs (15–31 km; effective thickness), we observe arc-transference to the overriding plate and slab-anchoring and fol..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by National Computational Infrastructure


Funding Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Australian Research Council's ITRH Project IH130200012 and DP150102887. AFRC was supported by a scholarship from the Colombian Government (Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologia, e Innovacion, 783), a research grant from the Colombian Association of Petroleum Geologists and Geophysicists (Asociacion Colombiana de Geologos y Geofisicos del Petroleo) fund and a top-up scholarship form the University of Melbourne (Baragwanath scholarship). AFRC thanks David Agray, Sarah Bonilla, Rohan Byrne, Roberta Carluccio, Julian Giordani, Mike Gurnis, Owen Kaluza, Neng Lu, Claire Mallard, Patrice Rey, Dan Sandiford and Haibin Yang for their discussions that helped improve the clarity of the manuscript. This work was enabled by Auscope, the Nectar Research Cloud and the National Computational Infrastructure (projects m18, mw52), which are supported by the Australian Government via the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). We thank two anonymous reviewers, Associate Editor Boris Kaus and Editor Claudio Faccenna for their constructive reviews.