ESR3: Deformation processes of lateral slab tearing, from crust to mantle

Supervisor

Benjamin Guillaume, Jean-Pierre Brun (Université de Rennes, France)

Objectives

The Mediterranean has three “rollback subduction systems”, in the Aegean, Central Mediterranean and Alboran Sea. Each has an asymmetric structure that results from lateral slab tear along one arm of the rollback system, also documented by mantle tomography. This suggests that lateral slab tearing plays a major role in the dynamics of slab rollback. The project aims at elucidating the mechanisms of slab deformation in rollback subduction systems and its consequences at the Earth’s surface. Two complementary and interactive perspectives will be developed: 1) New concepts and tools to study deformation in the mantle on the basis of slab deformation displayed by tomographic models (using analogue models and numerical simulations) and 2) Tests of model inferences in the Betics-Alboran and Aegean systems and elsewhere (southern Andes), in terms of relations between deformation in the mantle and in the crust.

Secondment

UniRomaTre, Faccenna, 1 month, analogue modelling and application to interpretation of tomographic models. CSIC Barcelona, Garcia-Castellanos, 1 month, comparison between modelling of slab tearing in the Alboran sea, carried out in Rennes and Barcelona. UM, Gueydan, analysis and interpretation of uplift-subsidence and crustal and mantle deformation patterns in the Betics -Alboran Sea system. G.o. logical, two times one month, to work on salt tectonics in Messinian deposits.

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