HR: 11:25h
AN: T42A-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Exploring the Notion That Subduction Erosion Has Removed or Submerged Costa Rica's Early Tertiary Arc Massifs
AU: * Scholl, D W
EM: dscholl@pangea.stanford.edu
AF: David W Scholl, Geophysics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States
AB: Arc igneous rocks of Paleocene, Eocene, and Oligocene age are widely exposed in the southern, coastal region of Panama (Lissinna et al., EGU abstract, 2006). These rocks intrude or overlie mafic basement rock of the Caribbean Large Igneous Province (CLIP) of Late Cretaceous age that extends to the east to underlie the Caribbean Basin and form the Caribbean plate. Immediately west of Panama, in coastal Costa Rica, exposures of CLIP basement are not intruded or overlain by arc magmatic rocks of early Tertiary age. EXPLANATIONS: Potentially, the early Tertiary subduction zone that dipped beneath the Pacific margin of Panama did not extend to the west, thus no arc magmatism occurred where Costa Rica presently exists. Alternatively, the subduction zone bordering the Pacific edge of the CLIP extended below Costa Rica but former exposures of early Tertiary arc magmatic rocks piled there have been erosionally removed or buried beneath Miocene and younger arc massifs of interior mountain belts. EXPLORING A SUBDUCTION EROSION EXPLANATION Onshore and offshore evidence documents that subduction erosion thins and truncates the submerged rock framework of the Middle and South America forearc. The eroded (removed) material is transported toward and into the mantle within the subduction channel separating the upper plate of the forearc and lower plate of the subducting oceanic crust. The long-term (greater than 10 Myr) rate of truncation (i. e., migration of the trench toward a fixed, onshore reference) averages 2 to 3 km/Myr. Because of the subduction of the aseismic Cocos Ridge beneath Costa Rica, during at least the past 4 to 5 Myr the rate of truncation at this margin has been much higher. It is proposed that during the past 50 Myr subduction erosion has truncated the Costa Rica forearc by at least 100 km and either obliterated or deeply submerged arc massifs of early Tertiary age. Their exposed presence to the east in neighboring Panama reflects the circumstance that since the early Miocene the Panama sector of the Middle America margin has been a transform margin separating the Cocos and Caribbean plates, thus subduction erosion here has been minimal. During the past 25 Myr the virtual lack of subduction erosion along the Panama margin has thus preserved arc massif evidence of the early Tertiary subduction of Pacific ocean crust beneath the western edge of the CLIP, but similar evidence has been destroyed or submerged along the neighboring Costa Rica margin.
DE: 1031 Subduction zone processes (3060, 3613, 8170, 8413)
DE: 3060 Subduction zone processes (1031, 3613, 8170, 8413)
DE: 3613 Subduction zone processes (1031, 3060, 8170, 8413)
DE: 8170 Subduction zone processes (1031, 3060, 3613, 8413)
DE: 8413 Subduction zone processes (1031, 3060, 3613, 8170)
SC: Tectonophysics [T]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly