Cenozoic East Asia plate tectonic reconstructions using constraints of mapped and unfolded slabs from mantle seismic tomography
Abstract
Subducted slabs were mapped in the mantle under East Asia using MITP08 global seismic tomography (Li et al., 2008), Benioff zone seismicities and published local tomography. 3D gridded slab surfaces were constructed by manually picking and correlating the midpoint of fast seismic anomalies along variable cross-section orientations. The mapped slabs were structurally 'unfolded' and restored to the spherical Earth surface to assess their pre-subduction geometries. Gplates software was used to constrain plate tectonic reconstructions using the unfolded slabs. The unfolded SE Asia upper mantle slabs reveal a 'picture puzzle' fit along their edges that suggests a larger NE Indo-Australian ocean once existed that included the Philippine Sea, Molucca Sea and Celebes Sea. Deeper lower mantle detached slabs indicate an early to mid-Cenozoic 'East Asia Sea' between east Sundaland and the Pacific that stretched from the Ryukyu Islands north of present-day Taiwan southward to Sulawesi. The unfolded slab constraints produced gap and overlap incompatibilities when used in published plate tectonic reconstructions. Here a plate tectonic reconstruction incorporating the unfolded slab constraints is proposed that has the Philippine Sea, Molucca Sea and Celebes Sea clustered at the northern margin of Australia during the early Cenozoic. At the mid-Cenozoic these plates moved NNE with 'Australia-like' plate motions and overrode the 'East Asia Sea'. Plate motions were accommodated by N-S transforms at the eastern margin of Sundaland. Between 25 to 15 Ma the Philippine Sea, Molucca Sea and Celebes Sea plates were fragmented from the greater Indo-Australian ocean. The Philippine Sea was captured by the Pacific plate and now has Pacific-like westward motions.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.T41F..07W
- Keywords:
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- 3040 MARINE GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS / Plate tectonics;
- 8157 TECTONOPHYSICS / Plate motions: past;
- 8180 TECTONOPHYSICS / Tomography;
- 9320 GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION / Asia