A displaced lower mantle source of the Hainan plume in South China
revealed by receiver function imaging of the CEArray
Abstract
We analyzed 49,592 teleseismic receiver functions recorded by 278
CEArray stations to image the mantle transition zone (MTZ) beneath the
South China Block to understand origins of deep velocity anomalies and
their potential links to subduction and intraplate volcanism. We
employed a fast-marching method and a high-resolution 3-D velocity model
(FWEA18) derived from full waveform inversion in computing P-to-S
conversion times to better image the 410-km and 660-km discontinuities.
Our results indicate that the common-conversion-point stacking of
receiver functions using 3-D conversion times yielded better migration
images of the two discontinuities. The images revealed a slightly
depressed 410-km with a few small uplifted patches, and showed that the
660-km beneath the western Yangtze Craton is depressed by 10-25 km,
which is likely caused by the stagnant Paleo-Pacific slab. The 660-km
beneath the southern Cathaysia Block has a 5-15 km high plateau with a
topographic low at its central part. The lateral dimension of the
topographic low is ~150 km and located beneath the
central Pearl River Mount Basin near Hong Kong. We speculate the
topographic low occurs within the Hainan plume with a temperature excess
of ~300-400 K and is caused by the garnet phase
transition. The displaced deep plume enters the MTZ and spreads nearly
horizontally at the base. The plume evolves into two channels with a
minor one toward the northeast and a major one toward the southwest,
which keep moving upward to the 410-km. The southwest channel is likely
the source that feeds the Hainan volcanoes.