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Date: 4/22/2021

Session Time: 9:45 AM to 11:00 AM Pacific

Imaging Incipient and Fossil Subduction Zones

Subduction is a fundamental Earth process – it is integral for plate tectonics and the recycling of the planet’s surface, plays a significant role in long term climate regulation and is the principal source of volcanic and seismic hazard around the globe. We are at a critical juncture where large-scale multidisciplinary efforts are being launched to better understand the descent of oceanic slabs. But how can new trenches be generated? And what happens when the descent of the down-going slab ceases? Causes of subduction initiation and consequences of its termination are two aspects of the subduction cycle that have received little attention. Thus, they remain enigmatic, controversial and models are typically not well supported by observations. 3D high-resolution seismic images are central to the understanding of the subduction cycle and are crucial in the investigation of the mechanisms that drive likely modes of subduction initiation and termination. The goal of this session is to motivate discussion on the current state of subduction-zone imaging with a special focus on incipient and fossil subductions, new seismic network deployments, advanced seismic imaging methods (e.g., ambient noise tomography, migration imaging and full waveform inversion) that can explore and fully utilize big seismic datasets to better image subduction past, present and future. 

Conveners

Simone Pilia, University of Cambridge (sp895@cam.ac.uk)
Min Chen, Michigan State University (chenmi22@msu.edu)
Caroline Eakin, Australian National University (caroline.eakin@anu.edu.au)

Oral Presentations