Two arrays of broad-band seismic stations were deployed in the north central Andes between 8 • and 21 • S, the CAUGHT array over the normally subducting slab in northwestern Bolivia and southern Peru, and the PULSE array over the southern part of the Peruvian flat slab where the Nazca Ridge is subducting under South America. We apply finite frequency teleseismic P-and S-wave tomography to data from these arrays to investigate the subducting Nazca plate and the surrounding mantle in this region where the subduction angle changes from flat north of 14 • S to normally dipping in the south. We present new constraints on the location and geometry of the Nazca slab under southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia from 95 to 660 km depth. Our tomographic images show that the Peruvian flat slab extends further inland than previously proposed along the projection of the Nazca Ridge. Once the slab re-steepens inboard of the flat slab region, the Nazca slab dips very steeply (∼70 • ) from about 150 km depth to 410 km depth. Below this the slab thickens and deforms in the mantle transition zone. We tentatively propose a ridge-parallel slab tear along the north edge of the Nazca Ridge between 130 and 350 km depth based on the offset between the slab anomaly north of the ridge and the location of the re-steepened Nazca slab inboard of the flat slab region, although additional work is needed to confirm the existence of this feature. The subslab mantle directly below the inboard projection of the Nazca Ridge is characterized by a prominent low-velocity anomaly. South of the Peruvian flat slab, fast anomalies are imaged in an area confined to the Eastern Cordillera and bounded to the east by well-resolved low-velocity anomalies. These low-velocity anomalies at depths greater than 100 km suggest that thick mantle lithosphere associated with underthrusting of cratonic crust from the east is not present. In northwestern Bolivia a vertically elongated fast anomaly under the Subandean Zone is interpreted as a block of delaminating lithosphere.

No abstract

Slow seismic velocity anomalies are commonly imaged beneath subducting slabs in tomographic studies, yet a unifying explanation for their distribution has not been agreed upon. In South America two such anomalies have been imaged associated with subduction of the Nazca Ridge in Peru and the Juan Fernández Ridge in Chile. Here we present new seismic images of the subslab slow velocity anomaly beneath Chile, which give a unique view of the nature of such anomalies. Slow seismic velocities within a large hole in the subducted Nazca slab connect with a subslab slow anomaly that appears correlated with the extent of the subducted Juan Fernández Ridge. The hole in the slab may allow the subslab material to rise into the mantle wedge, revealing the positive buoyancy of the slow material. We propose a new model for subslab slow velocity anomalies beneath the Nazca slab related to the entrainment of hot spot material.

Nazca subduction beneath South America is one of our best modern examples of long‐lived ocean‐continent subduction on the planet, serving as a foundation for our understanding of subduction processes. Within that framework, persistent heterogeneities at a range of scales in both the South America and Nazca plates is difficult to reconcile without detailed knowledge of the subducted Nazca slab structure. Here we use teleseismic travel time residuals from >1,000 broadband and short‐period seismic stations across South America in a single tomographic inversion to produce the highest‐resolution contiguous P wave tomography model of the subducting slab and surrounding mantle beneath South America to date. Our model reveals a continuous trench‐parallel fast seismic velocity anomaly across the majority of South America that is consistent with the subducting Nazca slab. The imaged anomaly indicates a number of robust features of the subducted slab, including variable slab dip, extensive lower mantle penetration, slab stagnation in the lower mantle, and variable slab amplitude, that are incorporated into a new, comprehensive model of the geometry of the Nazca slab surface to ~1,100 km depth. Lower mantle slab penetration along the entire margin suggests that lower mantle slab anchoring is insufficient to explain along strike upper plate variability while slab stagnation in the lower mantle indicates that the 1,000 km discontinuity is dominant beneath South America.

Within oceanic lithosphere a fossilised fabric is often preserved originating 15 from the time of plate formation. Such fabric is thought to form at the mid-ocean 16 ridge when olivine crystals align with the direction of plate spreading 1,2 . It is 17 unclear, however, whether this fossil fabric is preserved within slabs during 18 subduction or over-printed by subduction-induced deformation. The alignment of 19 olivine crystals, such as within fossil fabrics, can generate anisotropy that is sensed 20 by passing seismic waves. Seismic anisotropy is therefore a useful tool for 21 investigating the dynamics of subduction zones, but it has so far proven difficult to 22 observe the anisotropic properties of the subducted slab itself. Here we analyse 23