EGU2020-11320
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-11320
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Diffuse mantle upwelling and melts accumulation beneath the Italian Apennines.

Irene Bianchi1, Claudio Chiarabba2, Pasquale De Gori2, and Nicola Piana Agostinetti3
Irene Bianchi et al.
  • 1Department of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Vienna, Austria (irene.bianchi@univie.ac.at)
  • 2Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome, Italy
  • 3Department of Geodynamics and Sedimentology,University of Vienna, Austria

The focus of this study is the mantle structure beneath the Apennines, and aims to understanding how deep processes are connected to shallow deformations. We present new observations from a rich receiver function data set from stations located along the North and Central Apennine chain, and use it for comparison and to strengthen the observations of previous seismic tomography images. The two methodologies define a low shear wave velocity zone (decrease of Vs in the order of 5%) and an increase of Vp/Vs (about 3%) in the shallow mantle between 50 and 90 km depth beneath the orogenic belt. The low Vs melt zone is not restricted to the mantle beneath the Quaternary volcanic areas, as previously thought, but is detected under the whole central Apennines suggesting future broad effects on a large scale.  Our interpretation of the teleseismic RFs and tomography, reveals consistently a diffuse mantle upwelling beneath the Apennines, and we hypothesize that slab-derived fluids might interact with the sub-lithospheric mantle generating melts that accumulate at the top of the mantle feeding post-collisional extension. This mechanism can be potentially applied to other cases of extension that spread over wide continental regions.

How to cite: Bianchi, I., Chiarabba, C., De Gori, P., and Piana Agostinetti, N.: Diffuse mantle upwelling and melts accumulation beneath the Italian Apennines., EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-11320, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-11320, 2020.

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