The SOUTHERN PUNA Seismic Experiment: Shape of the Subducting Nazca Plate, Areas of Concentrated Mantle and Crustal Earthquakes, and Crustal Focal Mechanisms

The SOUTHERN PUNA Seismic Experiment in the Central Andes between 25° - 28°S and 70° - 65°W recorded data in a 74-instrument array from Dec 07 to Nov 09 with the purpose of evaluating the structure and seismic character of the mantle and crust at the southern end of the Puna-Antiplano Plateau. Hypocenter locations for local and regional mantle earthquakes from 16 months of continuous recording confirm the persistence of the backarc teleseismic Antofalla Gap in intermediate depth mantle seismicity between 25.5° and 27.5°S consistent with the interpretation of a hot mantle wedge under this region. The best located Wadati Benioff Zone events agree with the subducting Nazca Plate contours of Cahill and Isacks (1992) north of 27°S, but show a more abrupt southward shallowing of contours in agreement with the Anderson et al. (2007) contours outlining the projected path of the already subducted Juan Fernandez Ridge. Another prominent feature in the data is the concentration of hypocenters in the Pipanaco nest to the south of the Antofalla Gap between 27° and 29°S. New PUNA results together with available HCMT solutions indicate NW oriented normal and strike-slip faulting in three general clusters within this nest at ~130km, 150km and 180km depth. Hypocenter locations and fault solutions for the Pipanaco Nest suggest flexure associated with steepening of the subducting slab consistent with the revised Wadati Benioff Zone contours. In an area of little to no crustal seismicity in global catalogs over the same time period, hundreds of well-located crustal earthquakes at depths less than 15km were recorded by the PUNA array. Among these earthquakes are three distinct clusters near relatively young volcanic centers. One cluster defines a nest northeast of the < 1 Ma Cerro Blanco caldera. The other two clusters are characterized by large quantities of earthquakes within 24-36 hours (swarms) near the Cerro Galan caldera that last erupted at ~2 Ma and near a ~1 Ma or younger dome complex northeast of Ojos del Salado. Thirteen new focal mechanisms were calculated showing mainly strike slip and thrust faulting solutions on the plateau and an east-west compressional direction consistent with the only previous existing focal mechanism in Chinn and Isacks (1988). Overall, the shallow hypocenter depths and apparent stress orientation of local crustal earthquakes indicate that the southern Puna crust is hot and currently under compression.