NW Pacific‐Panthalassa Intra‐Oceanic Subduction During Mesozoic Times From Mantle Convection and Geoid Models

Abstract

Abstract Pacific‐Panthalassa plate tectonics are the most challenging on Earth to reconstruct during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras due to extensive subduction, which has resulted in large (>9,000 km length) unconstrained gaps between the Pacific and Laurasia (now NE Asia) back to the Early Jurassic. We build four contrasted NW Pacific‐Panthalassa global plate reconstructions and assimilate their velocity fields into global geodynamic models. We compare our predicted present mantle structure, synthetic geoid and dynamic topography to Earth observations. P‐wave tomographic filtering of predicted mantle structures allows for more explicit comparisons to global tomography. Plate reconstructions that include intra‐oceanic subduction in NW Pacific‐Panthalassa fit better to the observed geoid and residual topography, challenging popular models of Andean‐style subduction along East Asia. Our geodynamic models predict significant SE‐ward lateral slab advections within the NW Pacific basin lower mantle (∼2,500 km from Mesozoic times to present) that would confound “vertical slab sinking”‐style restorations of imaged slabs and past subduction zone locations.

Keywords

• geodynamics
• intra‐oceanic subduction
• Northwestern Pacific plate tectonics
• synthetic geoid
• dynamic topography
• mantle structure