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Published November 23, 2010 | Published
Journal Article Open

Slab stress and strain rate as constraints on global mantle flow

Abstract

Dynamically consistent global models of mantle convection with plates are developed that are consistent with detailed constraints on the state of stress and strain rate from deep focus earthquakes. Models that best fit plateness criteria and plate motion data have strong slabs that have high stresses. The regions containing the M_W 8.3 Bolivia and M_W 7.6 Tonga 1994 events are considered in detail. Modeled stress orientations match stress patterns from earthquake focal mechanisms. A yield stress of at least 100 MPa is required to fit plate motions and matches the minimum stress requirement obtained from the stress drop for the Bolivia 1994 deep focus event. The minimum strain rate determined from seismic moment release in the Tonga slab provides an upper limit of ~200 MPa on the strength in the slab.

Additional Information

© 2010 American Geophysical Union. Received 28 August 2010; accepted 14 October 2010; published 23 November 2010. We thank H. Kanamori and D. Stegman for helpful discussions. This work was partially supported by NSF's PetaApps program (OCI‐0749334, OCI‐0748898), NSF Earth Sciences (EAR‐ 0426271, EAR‐0810303), and the Caltech Tectonics Observatory (by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation). Computing resources on TACC's Ranger and Spur systems were provided through the NSF TeraGrid under grant number TG‐MCA04N026. The figures in this paper were produced using GMT and Paraview.

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