What is it about?
Many scientists in the past have attributed the widespread Cenozoic volcanism at the surface in Iberia and Morocco to mantle processes as the active rising of mantle hot material from deep depths, commonly named 'upwellings'. To definitely image the mantle structure in high resolution and provide a conclusive answer to this debate we perform teleseismic tomography below the Ibero-western Maghreb region by combining data from dense permanent and temporary seismic networks in Iberia, northern Morocco, Canaries and Gulf of Cadiz. The combined dataset allows the computation of a P-wave travel-time tomographic model, which extends from ∼50 to 800 km depth and resolves new details of the mantle seismic structure.
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Why is it important?
Our findings are important because we investigate for the first time the connection between the upper- and lower-mantle structure below the Ibero-western Maghreb region and we provide new insights on the source of the multiple mantle upwellings. We suggest that the upper-mantle low-velocity anomalies imaged below Canaries, Atlas Ranges and Gibraltar Arc are fed by a lower-mantle source of hot material, commonly identified by the Central Atlantic mantle plume.
Perspectives
The next step of my research will be to find the nature (thermal or chemical?) of these mantle upwellings. A comparison of our tomographic images with numerical models will help to conclusively establish the extent to which rollback of the Gibraltar slab has impacted active mantle upwelling in the sub-slab domain, as well as the timing and areal extent of the processes.
Chiara Civiero
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A common deep source for upper-mantle upwellings below the Ibero-western Maghreb region from teleseismic P -wave travel-time tomography, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, October 2018, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2018.07.024.
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