[1] Indonesia is arguably one of the tectonically most complex regions on Earth today due to its location at the junction of several major tectonic plates and its long history of collision and accretion. It is thus an ideal location to study the interaction between subducting plates and mantle convection. Seismic anisotropy can serve as a diagnostic tool for identifying various subsurface deformational processes, such as mantle flow, for example. Here, we present novel shear wave splitting results across the Indonesian region. Using three different shear phases (local S, SKS, and downgoing S) to improve spatial resolution of anisotropic fabrics allows us to distinguish several deformational features. For example, the block rotation history of Borneo is reflected in coast-parallel fast directions, which we attribute to fossil anisotropy. Furthermore, we are able to unravel the mantle flow pattern in the Sulawesi and Banda region: We detect toroidal flow around the Celebes Sea slab, oblique corner flow in the Banda wedge, and sub-slab mantle flow around the arcuate Banda slab. We present evidence for deep, sub-520 km anisotropy at the Java subduction zone. In the Sumatran backarc, we measure trench-perpendicular fast orientations, which we assume to be due to mantle flow beneath the overriding Eurasian plate. These observations will allow to test ideas of, for example, slab-mantle coupling in subduction regions.

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[1] How reliable are shear wave splitting measurements as a means of determining mantle flow direction? This remains a topic of debate, especially in the context of subduction. The answer hinges on whether our current understanding of mineral physics provides enough to accurately translate between seismic observations and mantle deformation. Here, we present an integrated model to simulate strainhistory-dependent texture development and estimate resulting shear wave splitting in subduction environments. We do this for a mantle flow model that, in its geometry, approximates the double-sided Molucca Sea subduction system in Eastern Indonesia. We test a single-sided and a double-sided subduction case. Results are compared to recent splitting measurements of this region by Di Leo et al. (2012a). The setting lends itself as a case study, because it is fairly young and, therefore, early textures from the slab's descent from the near surface to the bottom of the mantle transition zone-which we simulate in our models-have not yet been overprinted by subsequent continuous steady state flow. Second, it allows us to test the significance of the double-sided geometry, i.e., the need for a rear barrier to achieve trench-parallel subslab mantle flow. We demonstrate that although a barrier amplifies trenchparallel subslab anisotropy due to mantle flow, it is not necessary to produce trench-parallel fast directions per se. In a simple model of A-type olivine lattice-preferred orientation and one-sided subduction, trench-parallel fast directions are produced by a combination of simple shear and extension through compression and pure shear in the subslab mantle.

Surface measurements of shear wave splitting patterns are widely used to infer the mantle circulation around subducting slabs; however, the relation between mantle flow and seismic anisotropy is still elusive. Finite strain is a direct measurement of time-dependent deformation and has been proposed as a proxy for the crystal-preferred orientation (CPO) of mantle minerals. We have conducted a series of numerical models to systematically investigate the mantle flow, finite strain, olivine CPO, and SKS wave splitting in oceanic subduction zones with variable slab width. They demonstrate that the preferred orientations of olivine a axes generally agree with the long (extensional) axes of the finite strain ellipsoid (FSE), even in these very complex mantle flow fields; however, neither the a axis nor the FSE axes necessarily aligns with the instantaneous mantle velocity vector. We identify two domains with distinct deformation mechanisms in the central subplate mantle, where simple shear induced by plate advance dominates at shallow depths and produces trench-normal fast splitting, while pure shear induced by slab rollback dominates the deeper mantle and results in trench-parallel fast splitting. The SKS splitting patterns are thus dependent on the competing effects of these two mechanisms and also on the subduction partition ratio = X p ∕X t : trench parallel when < 1 and trench normal when > 1. In addition, different mantle deformation mechanisms and SKS splitting patterns are observed in the mantle wedge and around the slab edges, which may aid in the general interpretation of seismic anisotropy observations in natural subduction zones.