Nature of heterogeneity of the upper mantle beneath the northern Philippine Sea as inferred from attenuation and velocity tomography

We investigated the physical properties in the upper mantle beneath the Philippine Sea using a theoretical relation derived by Karato [Mapping water content in the upper mantle. Subduction factory, AGU Monograph, in press]. From the attenuation model of Shito and Shibutani [Phys. Earth Planet. Interact., in press] and the velocity model of Widiyantoro et al. [Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 173 (1999) 91], observed attenuation and velocity anomalies were evaluated to explain the temperature, water content, and chemical heterogeneities in the target area. The results indicate that the observed anomalies in the shallower regions (50–200 km) may be due to chemical composition effects (e.g., concentration of iron), in addition to the temperature and water content anomalies. In contrast, for the deep upper mantle (300–400 km), the observations can be explained by only the effects of high water content (10–50 times higher than the average mantle). These inferred properties of the mantle are consistent with the tectonic history of the Philippine Sea region, which has had a long history of subduction and active magmatism.