GeoGeoGeoGeo OP t1_j1g458e wrote
Reply to comment by ESCAPE_PLANET_X in ‘Mind-blowing’ network of magma chambers found under Hawaii’s volcanoes - The discovery offers a possible solution to a long-standing mystery — how magma from the deep mantle travels to the Hawaiian surface by GeoGeoGeoGeo
What I find interesting is the fault(s) depicted in the mantle. At those depths, beyond the brittle-ductile transition I would have expected the rocks to deform plastically as opposed to brittle deformation. Is it mylonitic? Can mylonites have seismicity?
Edit:
As previously assumed, brittle deformation doesn't occur in the lithospheric mantle so I think it's assumed that seismic anisotropic reflectors (generated from crystallographic preferred orientations) in the lithospheric mantle arise from grain size reduction via dislocation and diffusion creep along grain boundaries. These seismic anisotropic reflectors are thus interpreted as fine grained mylonitic shear zones and thus downward extensions of brittle faults across the brittle-ductile transition from the crust into the mantle.
Now I'm curious as to how these mantle shear zones, a ductile feature in a ductile regime, remain long lived enough to act as pathways for magma ascent...
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