Yongshun John Chen

The Lei‐Qiong region is the largest igneous province in southern China and may be a surface expression of a mantle plume beneath the region (the Hainan mantle plume). To investigate the existence of the Hainan mantle plume, we used P‐to‐S receiver function to image the major seismic discontinuities beneath this region with a regional dense broadband array. We found that the Moho discontinuity beneath the Leizhou Peninsula, mostly covered by Cenozoic basaltic outcrops, is 10–15 km deeper compared to the adjacent region of Eurasian continental margin, showing a thickened local crust by upwelling mantle materials. Additionally, the imaged 410‐ and 660‐km discontinuities suggest a thinner‐than‐normal mantle transition zone beneath the region, implying that hot materials penetrate through the transition zone from the lower mantle. Both seismic evidences support the existence of the mantle plume, which might be 170–200°C hotter than the surrounding mantle.

The stable Ordos Plateau, extensional Weihe Graben, and Qinling orogenic belt are located at the northeast margin of the Tibetan Plateau. They have been thought to play different roles in the eastward expanding of the Tibetan Plateau. Peking University deployed a linear seismic array across the western end of the Weihe Graben to investigate the crustal structures of the tectonic provinces of this structure. Receiver function analyses revealed low‐to‐moderate Poisson's ratios and anticorrelations between Poisson's ratios and topography beneath the Qinling Orogen. These features may indicate a tectonic thickening of the felsic upper crust by folding and thrusting within the Qinling Orogen. We observed a strong horizontal negative signal at the midcrust beneath the Ordos Plateau which may indicate a low‐velocity zone. This observation would suggest the stable cratonic Ordos Plateau had been modified due to the compression between the Tibetan Plateau and the Ordos Plateau. We also observed an abrupt 4 km Moho offset across the Weihe Fault, changing from ~44 km beneath the Ordos Plateau to ~40 km beneath the Qinling Orogen. We conclude that the Weihe Fault is a lithosphere‐scale fault/shear zone, which extends into the upper mantle beneath the Weihe Graben. It acts as the major boundary separating the stable Ordos Plateau and the active Qinling Orogen.

The oceanic crust is formed by a combination of magmatic and tectonic processes at mid‐ocean spreading centers. Under ultraslow spreading environment, however, observations of thin crust and mantle‐derived peridotites on the seafloor suggest that a large portion of crust is formed mainly by tectonic processes, with little or absence of magmatism. Using three‐dimensional seismic tomography at an ultraslow spreading Southwest Indian Ridge segment containing a central volcano at 50°28′E, here we report the presence of an extremely magmatic accretion of the oceanic crust. Our results reveal a low‐velocity anomaly (−0.6 km/s) in the lower crust beneath the central volcano, suggesting the presence of partial melt, which is accompanied by an unusually thick crust (~9.5 km). We also observe a strong along‐axis variation in crustal thickness from 9.5 to 4 km within 30–50 km distance, requiring a highly focused melt delivery from the mantle. We conclude that the extremely magmatic accretion is due to localized melt flow toward the central volcano, which was enhanced by the significant along‐axis variation in lithosphere thickness at the ultraslow spreading Southwest Indian Ridge.

South China Cenozoic basalts (SCCB) are regionally distributed at the south‐east coastal area and can be grouped into three zones: a western zone (>38 Ma), a central zone (17–8 Ma) and an eastern zone (<8 Ma), leaving a temporal gap at 38–17 Ma between the western and central zones. An eastward migration of the SCCB could therefore be identified by the systematic decrease in the eruption age from the western inland to the eastern coast. We propose that most SCCB were associated with the lateral asthenospheric flows moving along the lithosphere/asthenosphere boundary (LAB) beneath South China and the subsequent decompressional partial melting. The lateral asthenospheric flows had been pulled by the eastward retreat of the pan‐Pacific plate subduction before 38 Ma and have been pushed by the northward indentation of the Indian plate into the Eurasian plate since 17 Ma.

We imaged detailed 3‐D crustal and uppermost mantle seismic structures in the North China Craton from inversion of Rayleigh wave phase velocity at periods of 6 to 143 s. The phase velocities were obtained from a combination of ambient noise and teleseismic surface wave tomography, and then the phase velocities were inverted to S‐wave velocities. The results show that both the Huabei Basin and Ordos Block have markedly rapid variations in both crustal velocities and the Moho depth. Huabei Basin has a thin (31–34 km) crust with low velocities while Ordos Block has a thick (~40 km) crust with high velocities. We also estimated the lithospheric thickness from the inverted S‐wave velocities using a simple S‐wave velocity/temperature relationship. Huabei Basin was imaged as a low S‐wave‐velocity anomaly in the uppermost mantle with very thin lithosphere (~65 km), while Ordos Block was revealed as a high S‐wave‐velocity anomaly with rather thick lithosphere (>120 km). These results indicated that Huabei Basin and Ordos Block have different thermal and/or chemical properties and had experienced different mantle processes and evolution histories since the Cenozoic. Furthermore, slow S‐wave velocities and very thin lithosphere (~65 km) were also found beneath Hetao and Weihe rifts bounding Ordos Block at north and south, respectively. However, Shanxi Rift—the boundary between Huabei Basin and Ordos Block—had a much thicker and higher velocity lithosphere than Hetao and Weihe rifts.

We use receiver functions calculated for data collected by the INDEPTH‐IV seismic array to image the three‐dimensional geometry of the crustal and upper mantle velocity discontinuities beneath northeastern Tibet. Our results indicate an average crustal thickness of 65 to 70 km in northern Tibet. In addition, we observe a 20 km Moho offset beneath the northern margin of the Kunlun Mountains, a 10 km Moho offset across the Jinsha River Suture and gently northward dipping Moho beneath the Qaidam Basin. A region in the central Qiangtang Terrane with higher than normal crustal Vp/Vs ratio of ∼1.83 can be the result of the Eocene magmatic event. In the Qiangtang Terrane, we observe a significant lithospheric mantle discontinuity beneath the Bangong‐Nujiang Suture at 80 km depth which dips ∼10° to the north, reaching ∼120 km depth. We interpret this feature as either a piece of Lhasa Terrane or remnant oceanic slab underthrust below northern Tibet. We detect a ∼20 km depression of the 660‐km discontinuity in the mantle transition zone beneath the northern Lhasa Terrane in central Tibet, which suggests this phase transition has been influenced by a dense and/or cold oceanic slab. A modest ∼10 km depression of the 410‐km discontinuity located beneath the northern Qiangtang Terrane may be the result of localized warm upwelling associated with small‐scale convection induced by the penetration of the sinking Indian continental lithosphere into the transition zone beneath the central Tibetan Plateau.