Tracking Deep Sediment Underplating in a Fossil Subduction Margin: Implications for Interface Rheology and Mass and Volatile Recycling.

ABSTRACT: The architecture and mechanical properties of the subduction interface impact large-scale subduction processes, including mass and volatile recycling, upper-plate orogenesis, and seismic behavior. The nature of the deep subduction interface, where a dominantly frictional megathrust likely transitions to a distributed ductile shear zone, is poorly understood, due to a lack of constraints on rock types, strain distribution, and interface thickness in this depth range. We characterized these factors in the Condrey Mountain Schist, a Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous subduction complex in northern California that consists of an upper and lower unit. The Lower Condrey unit is predominantly pelagic and hemipelagic metasediment with m-to km-scale metamafic and metaserpentinitic ultramafic lenses

SUBMITTER: Tewksbury-Christle CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7988558 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature