Imaging the subducting slabs and mantle upwelling under the Japan Islands

Abstract

A high-resolution P-wave tomography of the crust and mantle down to 700km depth beneath the Japan Islands is determined using a large number of high-quality arrival-time data from local earthquakes and teleseismic events simultaneously. The tomography shows that the Philippine Sea slab is subducting aseismically down to 430km depth under southwest Japan, though the seismicity within the slab ends at 180km depth. A low-velocity (low-V) zone in the mantle wedge under Tohoku and Kyushu is found to extend westward from the volcanic front to the backarc under the Japan Sea and East China Sea. Significant low-V anomalies are revealed in the deep portion of the mantle wedge (400–500km depth) above the Pacific slab under southwest Japan, which may reflect hot mantle upwelling associated with fluids from the deep dehydration of the Pacific slab. Low-V anomalies appear at 420–700km depths beneath the Pacific slab under eastern Japan, which may reflect hot mantle upwelling associated with the deep subduction of the Pacific slab and its collapsing down to the lower mantle.