6:15 PM - 7:30 PM
[SIT35-P12] Seismic evidence for a mantle plume beneath the Cape Verde hotspot
Keywords:Cape Verde, hotspot, mantle plume, seismic tomography, mantle transition zone
The Cape Verde hotspot is located in the African plate, about 2000 km east of the nearest plate boundary. It is composed of a group of late Cenozoic oceanic islands resting on a broad bathymetric swell on mature (>110 Ma) oceanic lithosphere. This hotspot has a positive surface heat flow, high geoid anomaly, and long-term volcanism. The last known volcanic eruption occurred at Fogo volcano in 1995.
We determined P- and S-wave tomography of the upper mantle beneath the Cape Verde hotspot using arrival-time data measured precisely from three-component seismograms of 106 distant earthquakes recorded by a local seismic network. Our results show a prominent low-velocity anomaly imaged as a continuous column <100 km wide from the uppermost mantle down to about 500 km beneath Cape Verde, especially below the Fogo active volcano, which erupted in 1995. The low-velocity anomaly may reflect a hot mantle plume feeding the Cape Verde hotspot.
We determined P- and S-wave tomography of the upper mantle beneath the Cape Verde hotspot using arrival-time data measured precisely from three-component seismograms of 106 distant earthquakes recorded by a local seismic network. Our results show a prominent low-velocity anomaly imaged as a continuous column <100 km wide from the uppermost mantle down to about 500 km beneath Cape Verde, especially below the Fogo active volcano, which erupted in 1995. The low-velocity anomaly may reflect a hot mantle plume feeding the Cape Verde hotspot.