Abstract
The Cenozoic volcanism in the French Massif Central region is fed by an upper mantle plume, which was revealed by teleseismic tomography about 10 years ago. This contribution reviews earlier studies and applies a new method to image the crust and upper mantle in the region. Since teleseismic tomography alone has only moderate ability to resolve crustal structures, we perform an integrated study by a joint teleseismic-gravimetric inversion to investigate the gross crustal imprints of the Massif Central. We use a 3-dimensional joint inversion code, which allows a variable model parameterisation, and 3D ray tracing to perform an iterative inversion. Travel time residuals are corrected for Moho topography and sedimentary influences to avoid mapping of known crustal structure into the mantle.
Our study finds a prominent low-velocity structure in the upper mantle, which is interpreted as the thermal signature of the Massif Central plume. With a modelled diameter of about 100–120 km it reaches down to at least 330 km depth. The average determined seismic P-wave velocity contrast is −0.6% to −1.0% in the shallow asthenospheric mantle and deeper upper mantle. We found two low-velocity channels in the crustal layer beneath the Cantal/Monte Dore and south of the Devès volcanic fields. A zone of mainly high density and increased seismic velocity is determined in the crust south of the Limagne Graben between the two volcanic fields. Furthermore the Massif Central is characterised by increased seismic scattering in the lithosphere as found by studying the teleseismic P-wave coda. We interpret the detected high-velocity/high-density body and the lithospheric scatterers as cooled magmatic intrusions, produced during the Cenozoic volcanism.
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Barth, A., Jordan, M., Ritter, J.R.R. (2007). Crustal and Upper Mantle Structure of the French Massif Central Plume. In: Ritter, J.R.R., Christensen, U.R. (eds) Mantle Plumes. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68046-8_5
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