Abstract
McKenzie1 proposed that the direction of subduction beneath an island arc will reverse following arc–continent collision. Dewey and Bird2 suggested that such an arc polarity reversal occurred in northern New Guinea; Johnson and Molnar3, however, proposed two alternative models of plate convergence that could explain the observed seismicity. We present here a spatial seismicity study of the Solomon Islands region which has revealed the existence of two juxtaposed Wadati–Benioff (W–B) zones of opposite polarity. Shallow and intermediate foci define a north-east-dipping W–B zone associated with active subduction along the New Britain and San Cristobal trenches and a south-west-dipping W–B zone associated with the inactive North Solomon trench (NST). These data provide the first direct seismic evidence of a reversal in subduction polarity at an island arc.
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Cooper, P., Taylor, B. Polarity reversal in the Solomon Islands arc. Nature 314, 428–430 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1038/314428a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/314428a0
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