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A displaced lower mantle source of the Hainan plume in South China revealed by receiver function imaging of the CEArray
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  • Yan Zhang,
  • Fenglin Niu,
  • Jieyuan Ning,
  • Chunquan Yu
Yan Zhang
Southern University of Science and Technology
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Fenglin Niu
Rice University
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Jieyuan Ning
Peking University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Chunquan Yu
Southern University of Science and Technology
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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.
23 Sep 2023Submitted to ESS Open Archive
30 Sep 2023Published in ESS Open Archive