Tomography and thermal state of the Cocos plate subduction beneath Mexico City

Abstract

The geometry and thermal state of the subducting Cocos plate beneath Mexico City has been enigmatic because of the absence of a deep Wadati‐Benioff zone. We present a tomographic image of the slab based on inversion of 8869 teleseismic P wave travel times measured on a portable broadband seismic network. The images combined with receiver function analysis show that the slab runs flat from the coast to near Mexico City, where it dives into the mantle just before the Trans‐Mexican Volcanic Belt with a dip of ∼75°. It continues down to a depth of ∼500 km at a distance of 400 km from the trench, where the tomography reveals that the dipping portion ends. As well as standard block tomography, we invert the travel time residuals for the parameters of a thermal slab model and find a slab thickness of 40 km that is consistent with the (15 Ma) age of the Cocos plate. The combination of a young hot plate and truncation at depth can explain the lack of deep seismicity due to high temperatures and lower negative buoyancy compared with an older, thicker, nontruncated plate.

Files

Additional details