Shear wave anisotropy in the upper mantle beneath the Nazca plate in northern Chile

Data from the Projecto de Investigacion Sismologica de la Cordillera Occidental (PISCO) seismic network and from six broadband seismographs that were operating in northern Chile were used to investigate the mantle in the convergent boundary zone between Nazca plate and the South American continent for the presence of anisotropy. Broadband data as well as long-period filtered data of teleseismic Sk'S and PKS phases were analyzed for the presence of shear wave splitting as a possible indicator for seismic anisotropy in the mantle beneath the PISCO network. Measurable shear wave splitting was observed with maximum delay times between the slow and fast split wave of the order of 1 s. Splitting of S waves from intermediate-depth events located directly beneath the PISCO network in the descending Nazca plate is generally associated with small delay times of the order of 0.1 s, a value typical for the continental crust. Near-vertical ScS reflections from two deep earthquakes in Argentina and one nearby intermediate-depth earthquake have similar splitting parameters as the SKS phases. This means that the anisotropic zone causing the splitting of the core phases can be constrained to the Pacific mantle underlying the subducting Nazca plate. It probably does not extend deeper than about 260 km. The majority of the anisotropy directions inferred from the core phases are parallel to the absolute plate motion (APM) direction of the Nazca plate, which is about N80 degrees E. At some stations, however, the fast polarization direction is pointing N160 degrees E, nearly parallel to the strike of the trench and the Andes which would be compatible with the trench-parallel flow model for South America proposed by Russo and Silver [1994]. This direction is observed over an approximately 100-km-wide band to the west of the active volcanic zone. It may represent either a second anisotropy regime in the mantle, a small-scale diversion of slab-entrained mantle flow, or a relatively small area where slab entrainment of mantle flow is reduced or ceases to exist. The large number of observed APM-parallel fast directions suggests, however, that the mantle beneath the descending Nazca plate in northern Chile deforms mainly as the result of slab-entrained mantle flow. The large variations of anisotropy directions in the Andean subduction zone indicate that asthenospheric flow in the Pacific mantle has a complex pattern which may vary over scale lengths of a few hundred kilometers and which may be governed by slab morphology.