Thermomechanic control on crustal seismicity along the Andean margin

Temperature controls the maximum depth of seismicity because it governs the transition between seismogenic brittle deformation at shallow levels to thermally-activated ductile creep at higher depths. We investigate this relationship for the Andean margin of western South America, an archetype of subduction-related active margins that host the largest megathrust earthquakes ever recorded and dense upper plate seismicity associated to crustal faults. We develop our own analytical formulation of the thermal state of the upper plate based on a 1D conductive geotherm with crustal heat production and known temperature at the base of the plate. To the east of the intersection of the subducted slab with the continental lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary (LAB), temperature at the LAB depth is prescribed by an asthenospheric adiabat. To the west of this intersection, temperature along the megathrust is calculated with the analytical expression of England (2018) that depends on the age and subduction velocity of the slab, megathrust friction, thermal conductivity and upper plate heat production. Because the shape of the megathrust and continental LAB for the study region are well constrained with geophysical data (Tassara and Echaurren, 2012), we can extrapolate the 1D approach to 3D and cover the entire margin between the trench and the eastern foreland. We select a preferred set of involved parameters (the preferred thermal model) by fitting a new compilation of surface heat flow measurements. Our results are then compared with the depth of earthquakes recorded along the study region by the catalogue of the Chilean Seismological National Center. For crustal earthquakes (located above the Moho depth), we computed the seismicity cutoff depth (SCD) at each location on a grid as the depth where 90% of the events have hypocentral depths shallower than SCD (for details see Riedel et al. in this meeting). As expected, the spatial distribution of SCD is positively correlated with temperature, although the actual average temperature for a given SCD can be different for different geological regions. This is explained by the dependency of the brittle-ductile transition (BDT) on rock type throughout creep properties of different lithologies, a concept that we use to infer the main rock type implied by the SCD-Temperature relation at each location. Thus, we convert the SCD map and thermal structure in a geological map of the middle-lower crust, which seems to be correlated with the geological structure and geophysical images of the Andean crust.