Assessing Chemical and Mineralogical Properties of the Alpine Slab Based on Field Analogs and Ambient Noise Tomography

Abstract

Abstract Recent geophysical campaigns in the Alps produce images with seismic property variations along the slab of sufficiently fine resolution to be interpreted as rock transformations. Since the reacting European lower crust is presumed responsible for the variations of velocities at the top of the Alpine slab, we sampled local analogs of the lower crustal lithologies in the field and modeled the evolution of equilibrium seismic properties during burial, along possible pressure‐temperature paths for the crustal portion of the slab. The results are then compared to the range of the S‐wave velocities obtained from the S‐wave velocity tomography model along the CIFALPS transect. The velocity increase from 25 to 45 km within the slab, in the tomographic model is best reproduced by the transformation of specific lithologies in the high‐pressure granulite facies along a collisional gradient (30°C/km). Although the crust is certainly not completely homogeneous, the best candidates for the rocks that make up the top of the Alpine dip crustal panel are a kinzigite from Monte San Petrone, a gneiss from the Insubric line, and blueschist mylonite from Canavese. While they may not represent the entirety of the crust, they are sufficient to explain the tomographic velocity of the Alpine slab. A lateral lithological contrast inherited from the Variscan orogeny is not required. Eclogitization, suggested as the first‐order transformation in convergence zones, could be a second‐order transformation in collisional wedges. These results also imply a partially re‐equilibrated thermal gradient, consistent with the Alpine thermal state data at depth.

Keywords

• seismic properties
• European lower crust
• Alpine slab
• CIFALS tomography models
• granulite facies
• eclogitization