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Two-stage subduction history under North America inferred from multiple-frequency tomography

Nature Geoscience volume 1, pages 458–462 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Eastward subduction of oceanic tectonic plates has shaped the geologic history of western North America over the past 150 million years1,2,3,4. The mountain-building and volcanism that brought forth the spectacular landscapes of the West are credited to the vast ancient Farallon plate, which interacted mechanically and chemically with the overlying continent as it plunged back into the mantle. Here, we use finite-frequency travel-time and amplitude measurements of teleseismic P-waves in seven frequency bands to obtain a high-resolution tomographic image to ∼1,800 km depth. We discover several large, previously unknown pieces of the plate which show that two distinct stages of whole-mantle subduction are present under North America. The currently active one descends from the Pacific northwest coast to 1,500 km depth beneath the Great Plains, whereas its stalled predecessor occupies the transition zone and lower mantle beneath the eastern half of the continent. We argue that the separation between them is linked to the Laramide era 70–50 Myr ago, a time of unusual volcanism and mountain-building far inland generally explained by an episode of extremely flat subduction5.

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Figure 1: P-wave velocity anomalies in the North American mantle down to 1,800 km depth.
Figure 2: Three-dimensional views of the subducted Farallon plate under North America.
Figure 3: Proposed explanation for the big break and the establishment of the current subduction system.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the IRIS Data Management Center for timely and easy access to the seismic data. This work was supported by NSF grants EAR0345996 and EAR0309298, and by Princeton University.

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Author notes

  1. Karin Sigloch & Guust Nolet

    Present address: Present address: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, 80333 Munich, Germany (K.S.); Geosciences Azur, Université de Nice/Antipolis, 06560 Sophia Antipolis, France (G.N.),

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

    Karin Sigloch, Nadine McQuarrie & Guust Nolet

Authors
  1. Karin Sigloch
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  2. Nadine McQuarrie
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  3. Guust Nolet
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Contributions

K.S. and G.N. designed the tomographic experiment. K.S. carried out the experiment and analysed the data. K.S. and N.M. worked out the tectonic interpretation. All authors participated in preparing the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karin Sigloch.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary figures S1-S5 (PDF 4308 kb)

Supplementary Information

Supplementary .mat binary file and 'readme' file with instructions how to use the .mat file (ZIP 3348 kb)

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Sigloch, K., McQuarrie, N. & Nolet, G. Two-stage subduction history under North America inferred from multiple-frequency tomography. Nature Geosci 1, 458–462 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo231

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