Subduction initiation is a critical link in the plate tectonic cycle. Intraoceanic subduction zones can form along transform faults and fracture zones, but how subduction nucleates parallel to mid-ocean ridges, as in e.g., the Neotethys Ocean during the Jurassic, remains a matter of debate. In recent years, extensional detachment faults have been widely documented adjacent to slow-spreading and...

We developed a kinematic earthquake cycle model applicable to transform fault zones, subduction zones, and collision zones on the basis of elastic dislocation theory. The crustal deformation associated with the periodic occurrence of interplate earthquakes is generally given by the superposition of viscoelastic responses to steady slip on the whole plate boundary, steady back slip on the seismi...

A great variety of volatile-rich material is fed into subduction zones, including all sorts of marine sediment, altered oceanic crust and some serpentinized mantle lithosphere1. Subduction delivers these materials to depth, but their subsequent history depends on how pressure and temperature increase together. In the cool shallow subduction zone, !uids are liberated at subsolidus temperatures, ...

Large subduction earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction zone pose a potential seismic hazard. Very young oceanic lithosphere (10 million years old) is being subducted beneath North America at a rate of approximately 4 centimeters per year. The Cascadia subduction zone shares many characteristics with subduction zones in southern Chile, southwestern Japan, and Colombia, where comparably young oc...

Subduction earthquakes on plate-boundary megathrusts accommodate most of the global seismic moment release, frequently resulting in devastating damage by ground shaking and tsunamis. As many earthquakes occur in deep-sea regions, the dynamics of earthquake faulting in subduction zones is poorly understood. However, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Expe...

We investigate global variations in the pattern of aftershock area expansion associated with large subduction zone earthquakes. The expansion of aftershock areas with time is relatively small in the subduction zones of Alaska, the Aleutians, Mexico, and parts of the Kuriles and South America. These subduction zones are interpreted to be characterized by moderate to strong interplate coupling. I...

[1] Arc volcanism is intimately linked to mineral dehydration reactions in the subducting oceanic mantle, crust, and sediments. The location of slab dehydration reactions depends strongly on the temperature and pressure conditions at the top of the subducting plate and hence on the detailed thermal structure of subduction zones. A particularly important physical property of subduction zone ther...

A finite element method with constrained elements and Lagrange multipliers is used to study tectonic faults in a viscous medium. A fault, representing the interface between overriding and subducting plates, has been incorporated into a viscous flow model of a subduction zone in which both thermal buoyancy and the buoyancy associated with the phase change from olivine to spinel are included. The...

Carbon fluxes in subduction zones can be better constrained by including new estimates of carbon concentration in subducting mantle peridotites, consideration of carbonate solubility in aqueous fluid along subduction geotherms, and diapirism of carbon-bearing metasediments. Whereas previous studies concluded that about half the subducting carbon is returned to the convecting mantle, we find tha...

Findings of coesite and microdiamond in metamorphic rocks of supracrustal protolith led to the recognition of continental subduction to mantle depths. The crust-mantle interaction is expected to take place during subduction of the continental crust beneath the subcontinental lithospheric mantle wedge. This is recorded by postcollisional mafic igneous rocks in the Dabie-Sulu orogenic belt and it...