[1] The Afar depression is an ideal locale to study the role of extension and magmatism as rifting progresses to seafloor spreading. Here we present receiver function results from new and legacy experiments. Crustal thickness ranges from ∼45 km beneath the highlands to ∼16 km beneath an incipient oceanic spreading center in northern Afar. The crust beneath Afar has a thickness of 20-26 km outside the currently active rift segments and thins northward. It is bounded by thick crust beneath the highlands of the western plateau (∼40 km) and southeastern plateau (∼35 km). The western plateau shows V P /V S ranging between 1.7-1.9, suggesting a mafic altered crust, likely associated with Cenozoic flood basalts, or current magmatism. The southeastern plateau shows V P /V S more typical of silicic continental crust (∼1.78). For crustal thicknesses <26 km, high V P /V S (>2.0) can only be explained by significant amounts of magmatic intrusions in the lower crust. This suggests that melt emplacement plays an important role in late stage rifting, and melt in the lower crust likely feeds magmatic activity. The crust between the location of the Miocene Red Sea rift axis and the current rift axis is thinner (<22 km) with higher V P /V S (>2.0) than beneath the eastern part of Afar (>26 km, V P /V S < 1.9). This suggests that the eastern region contains less partial melt, has undergone less stretching/extension and has preserved a more continental crustal signature than west of the current rift axis. The Red Sea rift axis appears to have migrated eastward through time to accommodate the migration of the Afar triple junction.

[1] Oceanic crust is accreted through the emplacement of dikes at spreading ridges, but the role of dike intrusion in plate boundary deformation during continental rupture remains poorly understood. Between 2005 and 2009 the ∼70 km long Dabbahu-Manda Hararo rift segment in Ethiopia has experienced 14 large volume dike intrusions, 9 of which were recorded on temporary seismic arrays. A detailed comparison of the seismic characteristics of the seismically monitored dikes is presented with implications for dike intrusion processes and magmatic plumbing systems. All of the migrating swarms of earthquakes started from a <5 km radius zone at the middle of the Dabbahu-Manda Hararo segment, and traveled northward and southward along the rift axis. Small magnitude earthquakes associated with the margins of the propagating dike tips are followed by the largest magnitude, primarily low-frequency earthquakes. The seismic moment distributions show >80% of energy is released during the propagation phase, with minimal seismic energy release after the dike propagation ceases. We interpret that faulting and graben formation above the dikes occurs hours after the passage of the dike tip, coincident with the onset of low-frequency earthquakes. Dike lengths show no systematic reduction in length with time, suggesting that topographic loading and stress barriers influence dike length, as well as changes in tectonic stress. The propagation velocities of all the dikes follow a decaying exponential. Northward propagating dikes had faster average velocities than those that propagated southward, suggesting preconditioning by the 2005 megadike, or ongoing heating from a subcrustal magma source north of the midsegment.

Continental breakup occurs through repeated episodes of mechanical stretching and dike injection within discrete, narrow rift segments. However, the time and length scales of the dike intrusions, along with the source regions of melt within continental and oceanic rifts, are poorly constrained. We present measurements of spatial and temporal variability in deformation from the currently active 60-km-long Dabbahu segment of the Red Sea rift in Afar, using satellite radar, global positioning system, and seismicity data sets, that capture emplacement of two ~10-km-long, ~1-2-m-wide dike intrusions in June and July 2006. Our observations show that the majority of strain is accommodated by dikes that propagate laterally over ~4-5 h time scales along the rift axis and are sourced from a reservoir in the middle to lower crust, or upper mantle, beneath the center of the rift segment. New intrusions during the ongoing rifting episode in Afar show that the injection of lateral dikes fed from magma reservoirs beneath rift segment centers is a key component in creating and maintaining regular along-axis rift segmentation during the fi nal stages of continental breakup. Our observations also provide evidence that the focused magmatic accretion at segment centers observed in slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges occurs prior to the onset of seafl oor spreading.

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S U M M A R YContinental rupture models emphasize the role of faults in extensional strain accommodation; extension by dyke intrusion is commonly overlooked. A major rifting episode that began in 2005 September in the Afar depression of Ethiopia provides an opportunity to examine strain accommodation in a zone of incipient plate rupture. Earthquakes recorded on a temporary seismic array (2005 October to 2006 April), direct observation of fault patterns and geodetic data document ongoing strain and continued dyke intrusion along the ∼60-km long Dabbahu rift segment defined in earlier remote sensing studies. Epicentral locations lie along a ∼3 km wide, ∼50 km long swath that curves into the SE flank of Dabbahu volcano; a second strand continues to the north toward Gab'ho volcano. Considering the ∼8 m of opening in the September crisis, we interpret the depth distribution of microseismicity as the dyke intrusion zone; the dykes rise from ∼10 km to the near-surface along the ∼60-km long length of the tectono-magmatic segment. Focal mechanisms indicate slip along NNW-striking normal faults, perpendicular to the Arabia-Nubia plate opening vector. The seismicity, InSAR, continuous GPS and structural patterns all suggest that magma injection from lower or subcrustal magma reservoirs continued at least 3 months after the main episode. Persistent earthquake swarms at two sites on Dabbahu volcano coincide with areas of deformation identified in the InSAR data:(1) an elliptical, northwestward-dipping zone of seismicity and subsidence interpreted as a magma conduit, and (2) a more diffuse, 8-km radius zone of shallow seismicity (<2 km) above a shadow zone, interpreted as a magma chamber between 2.5 and 6 km subsurface. InSAR and continuous GPS data show uplift above a shallow source in zone (2) and uplift above the largely aseismic Gab'ho volcano. The patterns of seismicity provide a 3-D perspective of magma feeding systems maintaining the along-axis segmentation of this incipient seafloor spreading segment.

The Afar Depression, at the northern end of the East African Rift, is the only place on land where the transition from a plumeinduced continental breakup to seafl oor spreading is active today. New images of seismic velocity structure, based on exceptional new data sets, show that the mantle plume that initiated rifting in Africa is absent beneath Afar today. The images are dominated by a major low-velocity feature at ~75 km depth closely mimicking the abrupt changes in rift axis orientation seen at the surface. This is likely associated with passive upwelling beneath the rift. Additional focused low-velocity anomalies show that small diapiric upwellings are present beneath major off-axis volcanoes. These multiple melting sources can explain the wide range of geochemical signatures seen in Afar. These images suggest that passive upwelling beneath Afar marks the initiation of rift segmentation as continental breakup progresses to seafl oor spreading.

Please cite this article as: Hammond, J.O.S., Wookey, J., Kaneshima, S., Inoue, H., Yamashina, T., Harjadi, P., Systematic variation in anisotropy beneath the mantle wedge in the Java-Sumatra subduction system from shear-wave splitting, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors (2008), doi:10.1016/j.pepi.2009 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. The tectonic context of south-east Asia is dominated by subduction. One such major convergent boundary is the Java-Sunda trench, where the AustralianIndian plates are being subducted beneath the Eurasian plate. We measure shear-wave splitting in local and teleseismic data from 12 broadband stations across Sumatra and Java to study the anisotropic characteristics of this subduction system, which can provide important constraints on dynamical processes involved. Splitting in S-waves from local earthquakes between 75-300 km deep show roughly trench parallel fast directions, and with timelags 0.1-1.3 s (92% ≤0.6 s). Splitting from deeper local events and SKS, however, shows larger time-lags (0.8-2.0 s) and significant variation in fast direction. In order to infer patterns of deformation in the slab we apply a hybrid modelling scheme. We raytrace through an isotropic subduction A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t tle. We then apply appropriately rotated olivine elastic constants to various parts of the subduction zone, and predict the shear-wave splitting accrued along the raypath. Finally, we perform grid searches for orientation of deformation, and attempt to minimise the misfit between predicted and observed shear-wave splitting. Splitting from the shallow local events is best explained by anisotropy confined to a 40 km over-riding plate with horizontal, trench parallel deformation. However, in order to explain the larger lag times from SKS and deeper events, we must consider an additional region of seismic anisotropy in or around the slab. The slab geometry in the model is constrained by seismicity and regional tomography models, and many SKS raypaths travel large distances within the slab. Models placing anisotropy in the slab produce smaller misfits than outside for most stations. There is a strong indication that inferred flow directions are different for sub-Sumatran stations than for sub-Javanese, with >60 • change over ∼375 km. The former appear aligned with the subduction plate motion, whereas the latter are closer to perpendicular, parallel to the trench direction. There are significant differences between the slab being subducted beneath Sumatra, and that beneath Java: age of seafloor, maximum depth of seismicity, relative strength of the...

[1] Indonesia is arguably one of the tectonically most complex regions on Earth today due to its location at the junction of several major tectonic plates and its long history of collision and accretion. It is thus an ideal location to study the interaction between subducting plates and mantle convection. Seismic anisotropy can serve as a diagnostic tool for identifying various subsurface deformational processes, such as mantle flow, for example. Here, we present novel shear wave splitting results across the Indonesian region. Using three different shear phases (local S, SKS, and downgoing S) to improve spatial resolution of anisotropic fabrics allows us to distinguish several deformational features. For example, the block rotation history of Borneo is reflected in coast-parallel fast directions, which we attribute to fossil anisotropy. Furthermore, we are able to unravel the mantle flow pattern in the Sulawesi and Banda region: We detect toroidal flow around the Celebes Sea slab, oblique corner flow in the Banda wedge, and sub-slab mantle flow around the arcuate Banda slab. We present evidence for deep, sub-520 km anisotropy at the Java subduction zone. In the Sumatran backarc, we measure trench-perpendicular fast orientations, which we assume to be due to mantle flow beneath the overriding Eurasian plate. These observations will allow to test ideas of, for example, slab-mantle coupling in subduction regions.