This dataset includes video sequences depicting the evolution in map view and lateral view of 7 analogue experiments studying mantle-scale subduction systems. The experiments are performed under a natural gravity field and are designed to understand the role of convergence obliquity on upper plate deformation and partitioning, with a particular emphasis on the role played by lithospheric inherited structures on the development of sliver tectonics.
All experiments were performed at the Laboratory of Tectonic modelling of the University of Rennes 1 (France). The experimental set-up corresponds to a lithosphere and sub-lithospheric upper mantle system. The lithospheric plates are simulated with PDMS silicone (Polydimethylsiloxane Silicone) with different viscosities and densities, and the upper mantle with glucose syrup. In particular, for the overriding plate, we simulate the presence of a weaker volcanic arc that can eventually be decoupled from the forearc by a pre-existing discontinuity. The materials are placed into a Plexiglas tank, where the impermeable bottom of the tank represents the 660 km discontinuity. The subduction is initiated by manually forcing the slab into the mantle and it then evolves under the combined effects of internal buoyancy forces (slab pull) and external boundary forces. The subducting plate is pushed toward the trench at a constant velocity of 1.5 cm/min while the overriding plate is maintained fixed during the duration of the experiments.
The evolution of the experiments is monitored by DSLR cameras (24 Mpx) taking pictures every 30 seconds at the top and on one side of the experiments. Pictures are then assembled into video-sequences. The scale bar, with black & white rectangles corresponds to 10 cm.
The set of experiments consists of one reference model (MODEL-01) with orthogonal convergence, and six models with oblique convergence (Table 1). Among these models, three do not embed a pre-existing lithospheric discontinuity in the overriding plate (MODEL-02, MODEL-03, and MODEL-04) while the three other (MODEL-05, MODEL-06, and MODEL-07) have such a discontinuity. For the models with oblique convergence, we vary the angle between the convergence direction and the trench from 80° (MODEL-02 and MODEL-05) to 60° (MODEL-03 and MODEL-06) and 50° (MODEL-04 and MODEL-07).
For details on the experimental set-up, and interpretation of the results, please refer to Suárez et al. (submitted to Tectonophysics) to which these data are supplementary material.
This dataset includes images depicting the evolution in map view and lateral view of 7 analogue experiments of subduction to better understand the interplays between slab pull and mantle flow at subduction zones. The experiments are performed under a natural gravity field and are designed to understand the influence of plate width and magnitude and direction of mantle flow on slab geometry, trench kinematics and shape, and superficial mantle deformation around the subduction zone.
All experiments were performed at the Laboratory of Experimental Tectonics at the Università Roma Tre (Italy). The laboratory models consist of one viscous layer of silicone putty representing the subducting lithosphere resting on top of a tank filled with glucose syrup, representing the convective mantle. We impose a horizontal flow in the convective mantle by pushing at a constant velocity a piston in the glucose syrup below an intermediate horizontal plate representing the upper mantle-lower mantle discontinuity.
The pictures show the time evolution of each experiment from the top (« top » folder) and lateral position (« lateral » folder) and were taken synchronously every 30 seconds, and downsampled to 5 minutes in this dataset. The entire set of pictures are available from the authors upon request. Model F14 is the reference model, without imposed mantle flow and with a slab width of 2000. Models F15 and F16 are models with 660 km and 4000 km, respectively. They allow us analyzing the effect of slab width in the absence of a background flow. Models F17 and F20 are models with slab width of 2000 km and a background flow coming from above the slab at velocities of 0.9 and 1.8 mm/min in the lab (corresponding to 0.9 and 2 cm/yr once scaled to nature), respectively. Models F24 and F26 are models with slab width of 2000 km and a background flow coming from below the slab at velocities of 0.9 and 1.8 mm/min in the lab (corresponding to 1.2 and 2.7 cm/yr once scaled to nature), respectively.
For details on the experimental set-up, monitoring techniques and interpretation of the results, please refer to Guillaume et al. (2021) to which these data are supplementary material.