Seismic anisotropy in the uppermost mantle, back‐arc region of the northeast Japan arc: Petrophysical analyses of Ichinomegata peridotite xenoliths

Abstract

A dense network of seismic stations has been deployed across the northeast Japan arc to investigate mantle wedge structures. To attain independent petrophysical constraints, we determined the seismic properties of Ichinomegata mantle xenoliths from the back‐arc region that were brought to the surface from the mantle lithosphere by volcanic eruptions. We calculated the seismic properties of the xenoliths from olivine and pyroxene crystal‐preferred orientations and single crystal elastic constants. The small magnitude of measured S‐wave splitting (delay time of 0.22 s in the area where the xenoliths were entrained) can be explained by the average seismic properties of mantle xenoliths for an approximately 20‐km thick horizontal anisotropic layer, indicating that the mantle lithosphere could be one of the dominant sources of seismic anisotropy; this layer is possibly related to deformation in the uppermost mantle lithosphere due to back‐arc spreading along the northeast Japan arc.