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Seismic activity in the Lesser Antilles (LA) is characterized by strong regional variability along the arc reflecting the complex subduction setting and history. Although routine seismicity monitoring can rely on an increasing number of island stations, the island-arc setting means that high-resolution monitoring and detailed studies of fault structures require a network of ocean bottom seismometers (OBS). As part of the 2016–2017 Vo lat i le recycling at the L esser A ntilles arc (VoiLA) project, we deployed 34 OBS stations in the forearc and backarc. During the deployment time, 381 events were recorded within the subduction zone. In this paper, we perform full-waveform regional moment tensor (RMT) inversions, to gain insight into the stress distribution along the arc and at depth. We developed a novel inversion approach, AmΦB—'Amphibious Bayesian', taking into account uncertainties associated with OBS deployments. Particularly, the orientation of horizontal components (alignment uncertainty) and the high noise level on them due to ocean microseisms are accounted for using AmΦB. The inversion is conducted using a direct, uniform importance sampling of the fault parameters within a multidimensional tree structure: the uniXtree-sampling algorithm. We show that the alignment of the horizontal OBS components, particularly in high noise level marine environments, influences the obtained source mechanism when using standard least-squares (L2) RMT inversion schemes, resulting in systematic errors in the recovered focal mechanisms including high artificial compensated linear vector dipole (CLVD) contributions. Our Bayesian formulation in AmΦB reduces these CLVD components by nearly 60 per cent and the aberration of the focal geometry as measured by the Kagan angle by around 40 per cent relative to a standard L2 inversion. Subsequently, we use AmΦB-RMT to obtain 45 (M w > 3.8) regional MT solutions, out of which 39 are new to any existing database. Combining our new results with existing solutions, we subsequently analyse a total of 151 solutions in a focal mechanism classification (FMC) diagram and map them to the regional tectonic setting. We also use our newly compiled RMT database to perform stress tensor inversions along the LA subduction zone. On the plate interface, we observe the typical compressional stress regime of a subduction zone and find evidence for upper-plate strike slip and normal fault behaviour in the north that becomes a near arc-perpendicular extensional stress regime towards the south. A dominant slab perpendicular extensional stress regime is found in the slab at 100–200 km beneath the central part of the arc. We interpret this stress condition to be a result of slab pull varying along the arc due to partial slab detachment along previously hypothesized lateral slab tear near Grenada, at the southern end of the LA arc, leading to reactivation of pre-existing structures around the subducted Proto-Caribbean ridge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The margins of the Caribbean and associated hazards and resources have been shaped by a poorly understood history of subduction. Using new data, we improve teleseismic P-wave imaging of the eastern Caribbean upper mantle and compare identified subducted-plate fragments with trench locations predicted from plate reconstruction. This shows that material at 700–1200 km depth below South America derives from 90–115 Myr old westward subduction, initiated prior to Caribbean Large-Igneous-Province volcanism. At shallower depths, an accumulation of subducted material is attributed to Great Arc of the Caribbean subduction as it evolved over the past 70 Ma. We interpret gaps in these subducted-plate anomalies as: a plate window and tear along the subducted Proto-Caribbean ridge; tearing along subducted fracture zones, and subduction of a volatile-rich boundary between Proto-Caribbean and Atlantic domains. Phases of back-arc spreading and arc jumps correlate with changes in age, and hence buoyancy, of the subducting plate. Seismic imaging of subducted plates offers a way to improve plate tectonic reconstructions. Here, Braszus et al. use new ocean-bottom seismometer data from the Lesser Antilles to locate subducted spreading centres and faults thus providing a new understanding of the evolution of the Caribbean plate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimating the location of geologic and tectonic features on a subducting plate is important for interpreting their spatial relationships with other observables including seismicity, seismic velocity and attenuation anomalies, and the location of ore deposits and arc volcanism in the over-riding plate. Here we present two methods for estimating the location of predictable features such as seamounts, ridges and fracture zones on the slab. One uses kinematic reconstructions of plate motions, and the other uses multidimensional scaling to flatten the slab onto the surface of the Earth. We demonstrate the methods using synthetic examples and also using the test case of fracture zones entering the Lesser Antilles subduction zone. The two methods produce results that are in good agreement with each other in both the synthetic and real examples. In the Lesser Antilles, the subducted fracture zones trend northwards of the surface projections. The two methods begin to diverge in regions where the multidimensional scaling method has its greatest likely error. Wider application of these methods may help to establish spatial correlations globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kevin Burke played a major role in the development of the "Pacific origin model" of Caribbean tectonics. The emplacement of the Caribbean plateau between the Americas, behind a series of north and east facing subduction zones known as the Great Arc of the Caribbean (GAC) throughout the Late Cretaceous and Paleogene is now widely accepted as the fundamental mechanism for the long-term evolution of the region. However, within this framework there are still many areas whose structure and tectonic history are poorly constrained. We present a compilation of new (collected in 2017) and historical marine magnetic anomaly and seismic data. We combine this with constraints from published geochronological and geochemical data in order to propose a new tectonic model for the Eastern Caribbean. We interpret phases of both arc retreat and advance along the eastern plate boundary with significant implications for the crustal affinity of the modern day Lesser Antilles Arc, Grenada and Tobago Basins, with clear evidence for east-west orientated back-arc spreading either side of the Aves Ridge (a now extinct Late Cretaceous segment of the GAC). It was previously recognised that in the north the arc migrated from the Aves Ridge to the islands of the Limestone Caribbees during the Eocene. We now suggest that this easternmost magmatic front extended the full length of the current arc, below the modern day Barbados accretionary prism. This outer arc went extinct as a result of westward arc advance and formation of the modern-day Lesser Antilles, subdividing the previous backarc basin into the southern Grenada and Tobago Basins during the Oligocene. Globally, whilst slab retreat and backarc spreading in oceanic subduction systems are commonplace, arc advance is rare. To our knowledge this is the first known example of wholesale arc advance in an intra-oceanic setting and may help explain along arc variations in Lesser Antilles geochemistry. The back and forth motions of the arc are probably expressions of the constraints the two Americas impose on this isolated subduction system rather than of variations in subducting plate buoyancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]