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Abstract Subduction initiation often takes advantage of previously weakened lithosphere and may preferentially nucleate along pre‐existing plate boundaries. To evaluate how past tectonic regimes and inherited lithospheric structure might lead to self‐sustaining subduction, we present an analysis of the Puysegur Trench, a young subduction zone with a rapidly evolving tectonic history. The Puysegur margin, south of New Zealand, has experienced a transformation from rifting to seafloor spreading to strike‐slip, and most recently to incipient subduction, all in the last ∼45 million years. Here we present deep‐penetrating multichannel reflection and ocean‐bottom seismometer tomographic images to document crustal structures along the margin. Our images reveal that the overriding Pacific Plate beneath the Solander Basin contains stretched continental crust with magmatic intrusions, which formed from Eocene‐Oligocene rifting between the Campbell and Challenger plateaus. Rifting was more advanced to the south, yet never proceeded to breakup and seafloor spreading in the Solander Basin as previously thought. Subsequent strike‐slip deformation translated continental crust northward causing an oblique collisional zone, with trailing ∼10 Myr old oceanic lithosphere. Incipient subduction transpired as oceanic lithosphere from the south forcibly underthrust the continent‐collision zone. We suggest that subduction initiation at the Puysegur Trench was assisted by inherited buoyancy contrasts and structural weaknesses that were imprinted into the lithosphere during earlier phases of continental rifting and strike‐slip along the plate boundary. The Puysegur margin demonstrates that forced nucleation along a strike‐slip boundary is a viable subduction initiation scenario and should be considered throughout Earth's history.
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Strike slip motion and the triggering of subduction initiation
Plate tectonic reconstructions of three of the best-defined Cenozoic subduction initiation (SI) events in the western Pacific, Izu-Bonin-Mariana, Vanuatu, and Puysegur subduction zones, show substantial components of strike-slip motion before and during the subduction initiation. Using computational models, we show that strike-slip motion has a large influence on the effective strength of incipient margins and the ease of subduction initiation. The parameter space associated with visco-elasto-plastic rheologies, plate weakening, and plate forces and kinematics is explored and we show that subduction initiates more easily with a higher force, a faster weakening, or greater strike-slip motion. With the analytical solution, we demonstrate that the effect of strike-slip motion can be equivalently represented by a modified weakening rate. Along transpressive margins, we show that a block of oceanic crust can become trapped between a new thrust fault and the antecedent strike-slip fault and is consistent with structural reconstructions and gravity models of the Puysegur margin. Together, models and observations suggest that subduction initiation can be triggered when margins become progressively weakened to the point that the resisting forces become smaller than the driving forces, and as the negative buoyancy builds up, the intraplate stress eventually turns from compressional into extensional. The analytical formulation of the initiation time,tSI, marking the moment when intraplate stress flips sign, is validated with a computational models. The analytical solution shows thattSIis dominated by convergence velocity, while the plate age, strike-slip velocity, and weakening rate all have a smaller but still important effect on the time scale of subduction initiation.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2049086
- PAR ID:
- 10473380
- Publisher / Repository:
- Frontiers in Earth Science
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Frontiers in Earth Science
- Volume:
- 11
- ISSN:
- 2296-6463
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2023.1156034
