Melt focusing along lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary below Axial volcano

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kent, G. M.; Arnulf, A. F.; Singh, S. C.; Carton, H.; Harding, A. J.; Saustrup, S.
• 署名单位: Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE); University of Nevada Reno; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); CNRS - National Institute for Earth Sciences & Astronomy (INSU); Universite Paris Cite; University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; Amazon.com; University of California System; University of California San Diego; Scripps Institution of Oceanography
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-2841
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08865-8
• 发表日期: 2025-05-08
• 关键词: east pacific rise; overlapping spreading center; seismic structure; lava flows; seamount; ridge; beneath; constraints; RESOLUTION; DYNAMICS

摘要

Beneath oceanic spreading centres, the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary (LAB) acts as a permeability barrier that focuses the delivery of melt from deep within the mantle towards the spreading axis1. At intermediate-spreading to fast-spreading ridge crests, the multichannel seismic reflection technique has imaged a nearly flat, 1-2-km-wide axial magma lens (AML)2 that defines the uppermost section of the LAB3, but the nature of the LAB deeper into the crust has been more elusive, with some clues gained from tomographic images, providing only a diffuse view of a wider halo of lower-velocity material seated just beneath the AML4. Here we present 3D seismic reflection images of the LAB extending deep (5-6 km) into the crust beneath Axial volcano, located at the intersection of the Juan de Fuca Ridge and the Cobb-Eickelberg hotspot. The 3D shape of the LAB, which is coincident with a thermally controlled magma assimilation front, focuses hotspot-related and mid-ocean-spreading-centre-related magmatism towards the centre of the volcano, controlling both eruption and hydrothermal processes and the chemical composition of erupted lavas5. In this context, the LAB can be viewed as the upper surface of a 'magma domain', a volume within which melt bodies reside (replacing the concept of a single 'magma reservoir')6. Our discovery of a funnel-shaped, crustal LAB suggests that thermally controlled magma assimilation could be occurring along this surface at other volcanic systems, such as Iceland.