Imaging Canary Island hotspot material beneath the lithosphere of Morocco and southern Spain

• Published in: Earth and planetary science letters Vol. 431; pp. 186 - 194
• Main Authors: Miller, Meghan S., O'Driscoll, Leland J., Butcher, Amber J., Thomas, Christine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.12.2015
• Subjects: Canary Islands; Conversion; Hot spots; Lithosphere; lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary; Mantle; mantle upwelling; Mountains; Plumes; receiver functions; Volcanic activity; western Mediterranean; western Mediterranean; lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary; receiver functions; mantle upwelling
• ISSN: 0012-821X; 1385-013X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2015.09.026

•Interaction of mantle flow with thick cratonic lithosphere and a subducted slab.•Images of sub-lithospheric low velocities concentrated beneath areas of recent volcanism.•Discontinuous channel of low velocities in upper mantle extending from Canary Islands to southern Spain.•Evidence of a tilted mantle plume localized in the uppermost mantle beneath Morocco and southernmost Spain. The westernmost Mediterranean has developed into its present day tectonic configuration as a result of complex interactions between late stage subduction of the Neo-Tethys Ocean, continental collision of Africa and Eurasia, and the Canary Island mantle plume. This study utilizes S receiver functions (SRFs) from over 360 broadband seismic stations to seismically image the lithosphere and uppermost mantle from southern Spain through Morocco and the Canary Islands. The lithospheric thickness ranges from ∼65 km beneath the Atlas Mountains and the active volcanic islands to over ∼210 km beneath the cratonic lithosphere in southern Morocco. The common conversion point (CCP) volume of the SRFs indicates that thinned lithosphere extends from beneath the Canary Islands offshore southwestern Morocco, to beneath the continental lithosphere of the Atlas Mountains, and then thickens abruptly at the West African craton. Beneath thin lithosphere between the Canary hot spot and southern Spain, including below the Atlas Mountains and the Alboran Sea, there are distinct pockets of low velocity material, as inferred from high amplitude positive, sub-lithospheric conversions in the SRFs. These regions of low seismic velocity at the base of the lithosphere extend beneath the areas of Pliocene–Quaternary magmatism, which has been linked to a Canary hotspot source via geochemical signatures. However, we find that this volume of low velocity material is discontinuous along strike and occurs only in areas of recent volcanism and where asthenospheric mantle flow is identified with shear wave splitting analyses. We propose that the low velocity structure beneath the lithosphere is material flowing sub-horizontally northeastwards beneath Morocco from the tilted Canary Island plume, and the small, localized volcanoes are the result of small-scale upwellings from this material.