Origin of conductivity anomalies in the asthenosphere

Electrical conductivity anomalies with anisotropy parallel to the plate motion have been observed beneath the oceanic lithosphere by electromagnetic studies (e.g., Evans et al., 2005; Baba et al., 2010; Naif et al., 2013). Electrical conductivity of the oceanic asthenosphere at ~100 km depth is very high, about 10-2 to 10-1 S/m. This zone is also known in seismology as the low velocity zone. Since Karato (1990) first suggested that electrical conductivity is sensitive to water content in NAMs, softening of asthenosphere has been regarded as a good indicator for constraining the distribution of water. There are two difficulties to explain the observed conductivity features in the asthenosphere. Recent publications on electrical conductivity of hydrous olivine suggested that olivine with the maximum soluble H2O content at the top of the asthenosphere has much lower conductivity less than 0.1 S/m (e.g., Yoshino et al., 2006; 2009a; Poe et al., 2010; Du Frane and Tyburczy, 2012; Yang, 2012), which is a typical value of conductivity anomaly observed in the oceanic mantle. Partial melting has been considered as an attractive agent for substantially raising the conductivity in this region (Shankland and Waff, 1977), because basaltic melt has greater electrical conductivity (> 100.5 S/m) and high wetting properties. However, dry mantle peridotite cannot reach the solidus temperature at depth 100 km. Volatile components can dramatically reduce melting temperature, even if its amount is very small. Recent studies on conductivity measurement of volatile-bearing melt suggest that conductivity of melt dramatically increases with increasing volatile components (H2O: Ni et al., 2010a, b; CO2: Gaillard et al., 2008; Yoshino et al., 2010; 2012a). Because incipient melt includes higher amount of volatile components, conductivity enhancement by the partial melt is very effective at temperatures just above that of the volatile-bearing peridotite solidus. In this study, the electrical conductivity of peridotite with trace amount of volatile phases was measured in single crystal olivine capsule to protect escape of water from the sample at 3 GPa. The conductivity values were significantly higher than those of dry peridotite, suggesting that the observed conductivity anomalies at the asthenosphere are caused by a presence of trace amount of volatile component in fluid or melt. On the other hand, conductivity of partial molten peridotite measured under shear showed that the conductivity parallel to the shear direction becomes one order of magnitude higher than that normal direction. These observations suggest that partial melting can explain softening and the observed geophysical anomalies of asthenosphere.