Highlights on mantle deformation beneath the Western Alps with seismic anisotropy using CIFALPS2 data

Abstract

There are still open questions about the deep structure beneath the Western Alps. Seismic velocity tomographies show the European slab subducting beneath the Adria plate, but all these images did not clarify completely the possible presence of tears, slab windows, or detachments. Seismic anisotropy, considered an indicator of mantle deformation and studied using data recorded by dense networks, allows a better understanding of mantle flows in terms of location and orientation at depth. Using the large amount of shear wave-splitting and splitting-intensity measurements available in the Western Alps, collected through the CIFALPS2 temporary seismic network, together with already available data, some new patterns can be highlighted, and gaps left by previous studies can be filled. Instead of the typical seismic anisotropy pattern parallel to the entire arc of the Western Alps, this study supports the presence of a differential contribution along the belt that is only partly related to the European slab steepening. A nearly north–south anisotropy pattern beneath the external Western Alps, a direction that cuts the morphological features of the belt, is clearly found with the new CIFALPS2 measurements. It is, however, confirmed that the asthenospheric flow from central France towards the Tyrrhenian Sea is turning around the southern tip of the European slab.